20 Soft Skills Examples for Students

How do you demonstrate you’re a capable candidate when you don’t have much work experience?

Most students make the mistake of focusing on one or two skills related to their limited experience. In addition, they’re not sure what skills employers are looking for.

If you’re one of them, you can see why your resume wouldn’t make it to the “yes” pile.

The key lies in understanding the skills you gained at school that are in high demand for employers — and then emphasizing them cleverly in your resume and interviews.

Through them, you can prove you’re a reliable and skilled candidate who’ll thrive with just a bit of experience.

In this article you’ll learn:

• The top 20 soft skills employees want to see on your resume
• How you can gain these skills (with or without work experience)
• How to figure out which skills are needed for a job based on a job description
• How to include these skills on your resume

Don’t waste days compiling overused interview techniques. Get original answers to every single question you could expect.

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What are Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills?

Soft skills are defined by The Business Careers as “the personal attributes, personality traits, and communication abilities needed for success on the job.” Hard skills are the technical skills you need to perform well in your specific occupation, such as computer programming or changing the oil on a McLaren.

Hard skills require specific training and education. Soft skills are usually acquired through personal experience and day-to-day interactions.

But don’t discount their value just because you don’t pay tuition to learn them. Soft skills are harder to teach, and employers are actively looking for candidates who won’t need additional training.

What Soft Skills Do Employers Value in Graduates?

It varies between industries, companies, and even individual managers. While it’s impossible to please everyone, here’s a list of the top 20 soft skills that employers look for, especially in fresh college graduates:

• Adaptability
• Creativity
• Time Management
• Attention to Detail
• Decision Making
• Problem-Solving
• Global/Big Picture Thinking
• Work Ethic
• Stress Management
• Self-Motivation
• Communication — Written and Verbal
• Leadership
• Listening Skills
• Teamwork
• Collaboration
• Networking
• Professionalism
• Taking and Giving Constructive Criticism
• Critical Thinking
• Empathy

If you spend your time as a student wisely, it’s not difficult to sharpen these skills to a fine point by graduation day.

In this article, we’ve grouped these skills into two categories. You can practice the ones in the first group without needing work experience. The second group comprises skills that are best acquired through volunteer work, an internship, or a part-time job.

Soft Skills to Learn on Your Own

Adaptability

Having an adaptable mindset is one of the most beneficial traits you can have — at work and in life.

Here are some ways in which you can practice adaptability:

• Say yes to things outside of your comfort zone: take up a new hobby or try reading a different kind of book.
• Embrace change and actively break your daily routines.
• Communicate with different personalities.

Creativity

Creativity is almost undefinable. But, it’s important to define it for yourself in the context of your career. Being a creative software engineer is vastly different from being a creative chef.

Practice your particular kind of creativity:

• Establish daily routines that support creativity, like free writing sessions or morning walks.
• Explore things outside your comfort zone or scope of interest, you’ll find unique intersections and think of new ideas.
• Take care of yourself and don’t let yourself burn out. Burnout is the killer of creativity.

Time Management

Time management as a soft skill goes beyond meeting deadlines and being on time. It’s about how effectively you prioritize your time, day in and day out.

If you need extra help to practice time management:

• Try out time-tracking apps and websites to get a sense of how much time you need for different types of tasks. Use that knowledge to plan your time accordingly.
• Prioritize tasks using different methods like the Eisenhower matrix.
• Use fixed time blocks for specific tasks and organize your days and week like this. It might help you focus and minimize multitasking.

Attention to Detail

This soft skill means not just that you pay attention to your work, but that you notice small mistakes and are thorough in your work.

How to practice it:

• Create and use checklists for different studying tasks.
• Do detailed-oriented tasks like puzzles or editing.
• Practice mindfulness to improve your focus and the ability to spot details.

Decision-Making

Even if you’re not naturally decisive, you can strengthen your decision-making skills.

Here are a few ideas:

• Give yourself short time limits by which the decision must be made. Practice with small decisions like what’s for lunch.
• Learn how to gather information and assess the pros and cons of a situation.
• Practice making decisions based on facts instead of wishful thinking, potential, or emotional factors.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving skills are a delicate combination of logical inference, technical knowledge, adaptability and innovation, leadership potential, decision-making, productivity, and collaboration. Many employers list this soft skill as the key one when deciding who to hire.

A recruiter I spoke to told me that problem-solving skills are the most important criteria she uses when hiring people without experience or connecting students with internships.

Ideas for practicing it:

• Don’t shy away from conflict — jump in and see how you can help. For example, if you’re working on a project with international students and can’t figure out a time that works with everyone’s schedules.
• Identify and describe core issues before trying to solve them. Gather as much information as possible. It will give you an idea of where to start.
• Break down problems into smaller, more manageable chunks. You’ll handle them more easily.
• Learn from the outcomes by reflecting on the issue each time you solve it.

Global/Big Picture Thinking

Understanding the big picture instead of focusing solely on your task will help you understand how different things affect each other. You’ll stay informed and be able to make smarter decisions, be more creative with your ideas, and make a bigger impact through your work.

How to practice big-picture thinking:

• If you have a favorite subject, create a set of sources you’ll follow to keep up with trends, changes, and events in the field.
• Do mind mapping. Start with a central idea and branch out to connect different, but related, aspects, challenges, opportunities, or consequences. If you’re a visual learner, you can use free tools like Miro to bring your ideas to life.
• Use the 5 whys technique to go down to the root cause of an issue. It’ll help you go beyond the surface-level understanding, and see the bigger picture.

Work Ethic

It’s popular for older generations to mock the work ethic of young people. But work ethic isn’t a generational trait. There are unmotivated people in every generation, just as there are hard-working people of every age. Work ethic is a state of mind and it’s all about being a decent, responsible individual.

Here’s how to develop it:

• Set and achieve your goals. Even if they are personal goals. Hold yourself accountable and look for reasons for your failures/inability to reach goals.
• Rely on discipline, not motivation, to get the work done.
• Seek and apply feedback, because it’ll show that you’re interested in collaboration and high quality of work.

Stress Management

Stress can overtake your life if you let it. It’s crucial to develop healthy habits now that will help you manage it throughout your career.

There are many options:

• Set boundaries. Be committed to work and school, but don’t let it take over your life.
• Enjoy hobbies, exercise, and get your sleep routine down to a science These build a perfect foundation for self-care! Here’s how you can improve your sleep routine:

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Here are sleep tips I follow as a doctor! #sleep #health #trending #wellness

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• Take regular breaks throughout to prevent stress. Don’t wait until you’re burnt out to take a vacation or step away from everyday life.

Self-Motivation

Practicing self-motivation can be a challenge. The key is to rely on discipline instead of motivation.

Ways you can set yourself up for success and train yourself to get better at this important skill are:

• Set goals with deadlines — start with easy wins at first.
• Take small steps toward your goals every day.
• Celebrate each time you achieve a goal.

Soft Skills to Learn with a Team

Communication — Written and Verbal

Communication will impact every relationship you have at work and in life.

Learning and practicing effective verbal and written communication will benefit you every single day, from writing your resume to giving a professional presentation.

Here are a few tips for practicing:

• Try active listening by summarizing what you heard in conversations.
• Organize your thoughts before speaking and ask open-ended questions to encourage dialogue and make sure others are engaged too.
• Observe your body language and adjust when needed.

Leadership

This boils down to how you inspire and motivate others, make informed decisions, and get things done efficiently. Leadership skills will be useful if you want to become a manager someday, but you’ll be able to use them in any situation — from a group project at school to a project at work, to being a good friend.

Fun ways to practice your leadership skills:

• Step up in group work and offer to organize things or keep everyone on track.
• Help your friends out if they’re struggling with a course or a subject you’re good at — it’s a nice way to learn how to guide and mentor others.
• Ask your friends or teachers for feedback. It’ll help you objectively figure out what you’re good at and how you can improve.

For more details about leadership as a skill and what leadership questions you might hear in a job interview, check out this article: Behavioral Interview Questions: Leadership [How to Answer + Examples].

Listening Skills

Listening, rather than just hearing, means doing your best to understand what other people are trying to say. Being an active listener isn’t just a nice skill to have, it makes people remember you as a great communicator.

How to practice active listening:

• Ask questions to show you’re interested and to clarify anything you didn’t quite get.
• Summarize what they said in your own words. It shows you’re trying to understand their point.
• Even if you don’t agree with what they’re saying, listen without judging. It’s about understanding their perspective, not just waiting for your turn to speak.

Teamwork

Teamwork builds trust among people, improves problem-solving and efficiency, keeps morale high, and fosters creativity.

How to practice it:

• Be open to others and listen to their input respectfully.
• Communicate properly with the rest of the group to be sure everyone is equally involved, heard, and understood.
• Be reliable, come through with your plans, offer help, and ask for help when needed.

Collaboration

Teamwork and collaboration are closely related but not always synonymous. At times, you will collaborate individually with another department or team. This may require you to be more communicative and use more independent skills than on a team project. Here, the ball is in your court regarding the work you do, its quality, your deadlines, and any questions you have.

How to practice collaboration:

• Set shared goals and make sure your efforts are aligned with them.
• Respect other teams’ and people’s boundaries, roles, timelines, and integrity.
• Proactively seek feedback on your contributions and provide feedback to others, too.

Networking

Networking online and through industry events is how most networking is done in today’s world. When done well, it can result in business opportunities, friendships, new skills, insider information, exclusive job offers, and so much more.

How to network:

• Connect and engage with relevant people on LinkedIn. 
• Attend industry events, conferences, seminars, and webinars.
• Keep in touch and nurture connections with teachers, teaching assistants, and peers.

Professionalism

This is a skill that encompasses several attributes, such as emotional intelligence, integrity, and conscientiousness. Your ability to empathize with others, defuse conflict, and communicate effectively are all important indicators of your professionalism.

Ways to practice being more professional:

• Take your responsibilities seriously and strive to meet your goals.
• Maintain emotional balance and good communication and be calm and composed even when you’re stressed.
• Be actionable and open to change. Seek innovative solutions to existing problems.

Taking Constructive Criticism

It’s not always easy to hear a critique of your work, but it’s something you need to be able to do with grace if you want to make it in the professional world. How to practice this:

• Understand you’re getting feedback on your work, not your personality or worth.
• Understand that other people might see your work more objectively — and it’s the perfect opportunity to catch your blind spots and improve.
• Create action plans and track your progress when you’re trying to improve your work. Having it documented will help you spot areas of improvement in the future.

Critical Thinking

Knowing how arguments work, what makes a good argument, and what makes a bad one, is a skill few people have.

Ways to learn critical thinking:

• Check multiple sources and consider different views and perspectives.
• Identify biases with yourself and other people. Recognize the factors that might influence your judgment.
• Write to clarify your thoughts. It’ll help you organize them, articulate arguments, and reflect on your reasoning.

Empathy

Focused on genuine connection, empathy is one of the most important skills in an AI-flooded job market. Recruiters want to know you are able to connect with and understand other people.

Here’s how:

• Put yourself in other people’s shoes and ask open-ended questions to understand where they’re coming from.
• Seek different perspectives and expose yourself to different cultures, ways of thinking, and new ideas.
• Be empathetic towards yourself. Recognize your own emotions and treat yourself with compassion because this self-awareness can enhance your ability to empathize with others.

How to Include Soft Skills in Your Resume

There is no point in guessing which soft skills you might need for a position because there is a way to know for sure. Here’s how to discover it and where to place soft skills in your resume.

How to know what soft skills the company is looking for

Analyze the job description.

Some job ads will explicitly list key skills an ideal candidate needs to have, so you’ll know exactly what to focus on in your resume:

Some won’t, but it’ll be easy to guess by checking out the duties and description of a role:

For example:

• Onboarding new customers = Communication and problem-solving.
• Identifying opportunities = Analytical thinking.
• Nurturing customers into advocates = Communication and empathy.

✅ Pro tip: If you’re not sure, you can always ask Google or ChatGPT what soft skills are key to doing a good job based on the job ad.

Where to put soft skills in your resume

In the Resume Profile

A resume profile is a short paragraph at the top of one’s resume that summarizes their career so far. It contains only crucial information like their proudest accomplishments, top skills, or key experiences.

Because you’re a student or a recent graduate without much work experience, you’ll be writing a resume objective. (Don’t be confused because both resume objectives and resume summaries are sorted under the blanket term Resume profile.)

Here’s a template for you where you can see where to put a few soft skills relevant to the position, which you possess:

A/an [2-3 DESCRIPTIVE, SOFT SKILLS ADJECTIVES] [YOUR CURRENT ROLE] looking for a [NEW OPPORTUNITY]. Looking/ready/excited/seeking to apply my [TOP TECH SKILLS] to help [COMPANY NAME] reach [THE DESIRED OUTCOME].

For more details, check out the guides we linked in the paragraph above.

In the Experience section

It’s simple, just list your work experience and what skills it helped you develop.

If you’d like a detailed guide on how to fill in this section, take a look: Work Experience on a Resume: 20+ Examples of How to List It.

In the Skills section

You should have a skills section in your resume. Try to include your top hard skills, soft skills, and skills you know the company is looking for (and that you have).

For a detailed guide on where and how to add skills to your resume depending on the resume format, read the guide Skills to Put on a Resume for Any Job [Post-Covid Examples].

Summary of the Main Points

• Soft skills are extremely important to employers and will be checked.
• They make you a stronger candidate and a better person.
• Chances are, you’ve already been practicing many of them during your years as a student without realizing it.
• Some of the key ones are communication skills, problem-solving, stress management, collaboration, critical thinking, and taking constructive criticism.
• They should be listed in several places on your resume: your resume profile, in the Experience section, and in a separate Skills section.

FAQ

What specific soft skills are the most common in the workplace?

Communication skills, teamwork and collaboration, problem-solving, adaptability, time management, leadership, creativity, critical thinking, and work ethic are some of the skills that employers look for and appreciate the most. To learn more about them and how to practice them, scroll up.

Where to put soft skills in my resume?

Mention one to two key soft skills in your resume profile, list them in the Experience section (connect them with experiences you had), and have a separate Skills section.

Which soft skill is the hardest one to learn?

There is no definitive answer because it’s quite subjective. It’ll depend on your existing skills, character, preferences, and sensibility. However, soft skills like emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, or communication can be a bit more challenging for certain people. This is because they require emotional regulation, cognitive abilities, empathy, patience, which don’t come naturally to everyone.

Are all soft skills transferable across industries?

Yes, soft skills are generally considered to be transferable across industries to a bigger or lesser degree. For example, communication skills are essential in life and at work in positions like Customer Service or other roles that require constant communication with clients and teams. However, communication skills will be less (but still) important for positions like Data Entry, where a bigger focus is placed on accuracy, attention to detail, or speed. Still, soft skills are extremely useful and applicable across industries, fields, and roles.

Can introverts have strong soft skills too?

Yes, they can possess and excel in soft skills. Matter of fact, some soft skills come more naturally to introverts. They’re often excellent listeners, great at written communication, with a lot of empathy, and strong problem-solving skills.

What soft skills are crucial for remote jobs?

Self-discipline and motivation, because you’ll be working from home. Communication skills, because you won’t see your coworkers face-to-face frequently and in remote environments, over-communication is encouraged. Time management, adaptability and flexibility are a few more that would come in handy with remote jobs.