Soft Skills Gen Zers Need to Learn and Managers Need to Teach
For anyone navigating the job market right now, it can be a challenge for any age. But, there has been a focus lately on what young Gen Z workers face when entering the adult, professional workforce.
Middle management is now dealing with where they stand against software and digital mediums that excel quicker at technical duties than humans hired to tackle the same challenges. This tech shift has accounted for a third of white-collar layoffs in recent years (google Amazon layoffs, etc in 2023).
Employee to management relationships also suffer due to both parties not seeing eye-to-eye on meeting the needs of employees. The layoff of managers also puts Gen Z employees in a rough spot. With 1 in 10 expected to fill these manager roles without acquiring the proper skills needed to succeed like communication, leadership, and collaboration. Gen Z feels underprepared to join the workforce. Lacking guidance and direction in their preferred roles to pursue makes it much harder.
Forbes encourages learning a minimum of ten soft skills to put on our resumes. In the last five years, the main highlights applicants push to include on their resume are certifications and achievements. An individual’s accomplishments lead to the belief thinking the more they achieve, the more likely they’ll be hired. In fact, achievements and technical skills are the most prominent sections on resumes, rather than soft skills like communication, customer service, self-motivation, and time management, which are hardly ever listed. And even if they are, it’s more of a laundry list than explaining why those are their best skills.
According to Chris Westfall, the most important soft skills an applicant can have include problem solving, teamwork, Microsoft Office, self-motivation, multi-tasking, active listening, excellent communication, adaptability, decision making, and critical thinking. While hard technical skills like data analytics and coding continue being dominated by AI and other digital transformations, employers now look for skills not overridden by technology and with human basis like emotional intelligence and creativity.
On top of learning and applying soft skills to your resume, explain briefly under each one how you use those skills in your everyday life and work. Resumes aren’t viewed anymore as an accomplishments Olympics, but why you’ve achieved what you have and why those skills match their work ethic. It's a reflection of you as a worker and as a person.
Sources:
Forbes: Why Your Résumé Needs Soft Skills to Stand Out In Today’s Job Market
