Soft skills, also known as power skills, common skills or core skills, are skills applicable to all

profession A profession is a field of work that has been successfully ''professionalized''. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, '' professionals'', who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by ...

s. These include critical thinking,

problem solving Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...

public speaking Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech deliver ...

professional writing Professional writing as an activity is writing for reward or as a profession; as a product or object, professional writing is any form of written communication produced in a workplace environment or context that enables employees to, for example, co ...

teamwork Teamwork is the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way. This concept is seen within the greater framework of a team, which is a group of interdependent individual ...

, digital literacy,

leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets view ...

, professional attitude,

work ethic Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination o ...

career management Career management is the combination of structured planning and the active management choice of one's own professional career. Career Management is an umbrella term that covers Career Planning & Career Development on an individual level or at an ...

and intercultural fluency. This is in contrast to

hard skills A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of w ...

, which are specific to individual professions. The word "

skill A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...

" highlights the practical function. The term alone has a broad meaning, and describes a particular ability to complete tasks ranging from easier ones like learning how to kick a ball to harder ones like learning to be creative. In this specific instance, the word "skill" has to be interpreted as the ability to master hardly controlled actions.

History

The term "soft skills" was created by the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

in the late 1960s. It refers to any skill that does not employ the use of machinery. The military realized that many important activities were included within this category, and in fact, the social skills necessary to lead groups, motivate soldiers, and win wars were encompassed by skills they had not yet catalogued or fully studied. Since 1959, the U.S. Army has been investing a considerable amount of resources into technology-based development of training procedures. In 1968 the U.S. Army officially introduced a training doctrine known as "Systems Engineering of Training" covered in the document CON Reg 350-100-1. PG Whitmore cited the CON Reg 350-100-1 definition: "job-related skills involving actions affecting primarily people and paper, e.g., inspecting troops, supervising office personnel, conducting studies, preparing maintenance reports, preparing efficiency reports, designing bridge structures." In 1972, a US Army training manual began the formal usage of the term "soft skills". At the 1972

CONARC United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) is the largest United States Army command. It provides expeditionary, regionally engaged, campaign-capable land forces to combatant commanders. Headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, FORSCOM con ...

Soft Skills Conference, Dr. Whitmore presented a reportWhitmore, Paul G., "What are soft skills?", Paper presented at the

Soft Skills Conference, Texas, 12–13 December 1972Whitmore, Paul G.; Fry, John P., "Soft Skills: Definition, Behavioral Model Analysis, Training Procedures. Professional Paper 3-74.", Research Report

ERIC The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

Number: ED158043, 48pp. aimed at figuring out how the term "soft skills" is understood in various CONARC schools. After designing and processing a questionnaire, experts formulated a new tentative definition: "Soft skills are important job-related skills that involve little or no interaction with machines and whose application on the job is quite generalized." They further criticized the state of the concept then as vague with a remark "in other words, those job functions about which we know a good deal are hard skills and those about which we know very little are soft skills." Another immediate study by them also concluded in a negative tone. Psychologist

Nicholas Humphrey Nicholas Keynes Humphrey (born 27 March 1943) is an English neuropsychologist based in Cambridge, known for his work on evolution of primate intelligence and consciousness. He studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda; he was the fi ...

famously stated that social intelligence, rather than qualitative intelligence, defines humans. Many industries today give prominence to the soft skills of their employees. Some companies now offer professional training of soft skills to their employees.

Concept

Soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively. These skills can include

social graces {{Short pages monitor