Why are Soft Skills so powerful?
They are innate. Find them, work on them and leverage them. That’s how you sell yourself, master an interview and get the job of your dream.
The 4 below Soft Skills are what got me at a top investment bank at the age of 20.
But… They can get anyone anywhere!
1) I know I got where I am because I deserve it: once you understand that you didn’t get there by luck, it is very hard for people to drag you down. People trying to destabilize you and be negative won’t touch your feelings. If you get hard questions and don’t know the exact answer: it is ok, you will learn and practice as you have always done. Knowing you deserve to be there it the best way to reach where you want to go.
2) Appetite for challenge: I can’t spend a day without a “mission”. Whatever it is, work, school, sport, friends, learning something new, doing something I hate doing. If you learn how to appreciate complexity then you start looking for complexity in everything you do and hard tasks become a game. You master them. Wake up every morning with a daily goal that will lead you to your medium term ambition and unable you to reach your long-term aspirations.
3) Don’t focus on what you don’t have but emphasize on what you have: I am not a man, I don’t know how to code, I don’t make to do lists… However I have a set of other skills on which I rely to be different: I don’t need much sleep and will always come the first to work, anticipate what my manager will ask and simplify process. I like to go straight to the point even if it implies reviewing and redefining processes that have existed for many years. Don’t fear to ask. Don’t fear to innovate.
4) Be true to yourself: never lie on an interview, to a friend, to a client because it implies lying to yourself. Some people try to be the perfect stereotype copying answer they have read on Internet. Be different. The place where you want to work is a place where being yourself is properly valued. You can’t be happy by lying to yourself.
Originally published at medium.com