Hard skills are skills learned through education or on the job training and are easily measured. Examples of hard skills are typing speed, ability to operate heavy machinery, inventory, coding, budgeting, sales, carpentry, etc. You want to make sure you advertise hard skills you have relevant for the job!

Soft skills are also known as interpersonal skills and more difficult to measure. Examples of soft skills are creativity, loyalty, punctuality, communication, attention to detail, cultural awareness, problem solving, etc. Do not discount the importance of soft skills! These are important and are often times much harder to teach than hard skills. For example, as a sales person it is important to have skills such as being persuasive, attentive, confident, and be able to communicate well.

Here are some sought after soft skills that can help your career.

Here are tips on how to identify and develop your soft skills.

Transferable skills can be hard or soft skills and are skills that you can use in a variety of jobs across fields and industries. An example of a transferable skill is communication. You can utilize this skill across jobs from a customer service representative to a realtor to a projects manager. It is important to realize that simply because you have not worked in that position or in that field, it does not mean you do not posses the skills needed to be successful in that job.