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Skills-based hiring is becoming more on the rise because employees want to see more than just your qualifications. In other words, employers are increasingly seeking to appoint candidates who don’t only possess technical qualifications but can adapt to company culture and success. With the job market getting more competitive, it is important that job seekers present potential employers with a holistic package that sets them apart from their peers.

Surprisingly, soft skills are often lacking, not much coaching is offered outside of curricula. Having skills that are outside the classroom is becoming more and more of a requirement for employees.

What are soft skills?

“Think of soft skills as your personal skills — things you do that make you a great employee outside of the technical skills that are needed for the job. They may come naturally to you, or perhaps you’ve added some classes to your list to augment these abilities”. While soft skills sometimes get practiced through group work, assignment deadlines and class interactions, shortfalls made in these areas by the students are not highlighted. As a result, students are not given guidance on how to improve these skills and apply them in different scenarios.

While students who are pursuing a college degree have a big advantage, it’s not enough. They have the ability to learn, which is a skill that employers desire. But learning in the classroom and excelling in the workplace are two different things.

To get ahead of the game, here are a few pointers graduate students should focus on developing outside of the classroom through part-time or vac work while earning their qualifications.

• Read and stay informed on world trends – Example: the impact Bitcoin will have on business operations and on your career.
• Awareness – You need to try and be socially, economically and politically aware of the development of your surroundings.
• Communication – This is a broad skill but it can vary from how you converse with colleagues and team members to how you get your point across in an email). Now that most communication is done via chats, and emails, it is imperative that you learn to interact in a team and communicate.
• Business acumen – This is the ability to understand business issues. This could include both general and organization-specific knowledge about business. This is an attractive trait particularly if you pursue a more corporate career route.
• Data Analytics – Employees in Technology may be most familiar with data analytics, however, it is becoming more important for general employees to be able to look at basic data and be able to translate that information into easy language. This will help you make strategic and educated decisions.

When you’re able to invest in skills outside of your classroom/workplace, you’re able to contribute to strengthening your personal brand.

Personal branding

The biggest advantage of building a personal brand is that you become a subject matter expert, gain more career opportunities, and may also grow in your community of followers. 

Notably, focusing on building your brand doesn’t mean that you’re on a hunt for a new job. You’re actually to use and transfer insight from your personal brand to investing in the company that you work for.

Useful questions to ask to begin mapping out a personal brand:

1. What skills am I good at?
2. How does my work differ from other professionals?
3. How does my work add value to business operations?

If you are an employee with a strong personal brand that can also establish themselves as a subject matter expert and thought leader, in turn, this lends your organization more authority and credibility. A win-win situation. This is why it is essential to understand that building your personal brand helps you expand your networks, providing you with new opportunities, helping you to keep up with industry trends, developing new skills, and more.

The phrase “gig economy” points to a work environment that involves short-term employment. It is different from traditional employment in that projects aren’t permanent. The jobs differ in length, involvement, and scope. Freelance workers jump in the “gigging” pool for various reasons: unemployment, to supplement their income; achieve flexibility, and constant change.

In South Africa, the gig economy has taken hold in recent years as parts of unemployed and informal workers move into semi-formalized work through online platforms. In addition to generating new work opportunities, gig platforms provide a channel to understand the financial needs of the people who make up the gig economy.

Launching a side hustle, especially following the global social and economic turmoil rendered by Covid-19, has never been more important. The gig economy creates an alternative source of income for many people outside of their traditional jobs. And exploring the gig economy is also an opportunity to turn your skills into a long-term career.

When you have skills that add value to other people, you should be making money from sharing them. For example, the ability to plan and stage successful events is valuable to the people and businesses that have events on their calendars. Gig Culture is a start-up example in the events space bringing value to brands, businesses, and people. Thinking through the value of your talent(s) is the first step to working in the gig economy.

Let’s explore how you can lunch and promote your skills.

Learn what makes your work valuable

The ultimate goal is to make a comfortable living doing what makes you happy and productive. It could be proofreading and editing words; online gaming, writing and designing slide decks for corporate executives, cooking, or anything else you have a strong knack for.

You need to think about what makes you stand out from other people who do the same work. To develop a unique selling proposition, ask yourself:

How do I stand out?

How do I make myself irreplaceable?

How do I learn the skills and master the technique of my work?

How do I become an artist at my trade?

How do I become helpful to people and build an audience (customers)?

Once you start looking at and working on yourself this way, you’ll soon learn the monetary value that your presence/skills provide for other people.

Create a portfolio of your work and refine your online presence

In the process of identifying the ‘secret sauce’ of your talent, there is a need to build a personal brand. This is a story about you, the reasons you do your work, how you do it and what work have you have done before.

A portfolio and a strong online presence are your allies in helping you land clients.

To achieve this, you can create a blog/website; write a slide presentation detailing your work and level of experience and distribute it to potential customers. And as you make progress, you might even consider boosting your brand awareness and credibility with a logo, a video channel, branded document templates for your proposals, invoices, etc.

Find projects/clients

Thanks to the Internet, joining the gig economy is not as hard as it used to be. You can connect with prospective clients from different parts of the world from anywhere you might be.

Begin by spreading word to your close network: family, friends, and colleagues. Let them know that you are open for work, what type of projects you are looking for, and what you offer.

Share your story, vision and ideas on your blog or social media pages. And to get attention on social and build an audience, aim to educate and help. The more people who get value from your content, the more you can build an engaged audience that routinely returns to hear what you have to say. In the process, don’t hesitate to share your work and ideas – you’ll gather insights you never thought of and build relationships.

As you develop your client base and produce quality work, those clients will refer you to others in their own networks. Before you know it, you will be ready to switch to being a full-time freelancer.

Which jobs qualify for the gig economy?

The advantage about working independently is that it’s entirely your choice what type of work you want to do.

In the gig economy, there are a variety of professionals: market researchers, legal and business consultants, project managers, game concept designers, data analysts, IT support, etc. The point is that if there is a channel to communicate and deliver the work to the client, you are in business.

According to Upwork, an online network that connects freelancers to employers, common freelance jobs include: design and creative; web, mobile and software developer; administrative support specialist; writer; translator; accounting/finance/consulting professional; IT and networking professional; sales/marketing/customer service professional; lawyer/paralegal; engineer; architect; and data science/analytics specialist.

The gig economy challenges

Being a freelancer comes with a few concerns. This includes access to affordable healthcare, a healthy savings account, retirement funds, and being compensated fairly for work.

Upwork says that 89% of freelancers wish their education prepared them for the gig economy work. If they were to return to the classroom, 52% of them say they would replace their traditional college education entirely with training tailored to their current work.

On the same report, 81% of the freelancers have figured out that freelance business skills are essential to their work and would appreciate additional training. The top three areas they would benefit from additional training on are:

• Networking
• Financial planning
• New skills in their industry
• How to start and grow a freelance career

And because working independently involves managing relationships, pitching and marketing, 78% of the freelancers mentioned that soft skills are as equally important as the technical skills in order to succeed in their work.

Turn your phone, digital media and Internet connectivity into allies that help you become an effective communicator.

Communication is undoubtedly a vital skill for every student to learn and be competent in. Over the last decade, there has been better awareness and appreciation of the inherent value of ‘soft skills’ in both academia and the workplace. This means there’s never a better time to sharpen the ways we communicate our ideas.

Innovations in online media, how education is delivered, and the ways in which people collaborate in the workplace present an opportunity to be media savvy. Due to the rise of digital media platforms, everyone is now a marketer of their own ideas and of their career.

Also, steep competition in the global/connected economy makes sharp communication skills a must-have in our toolboxes.

Writing

The main benefit of using digital platforms for processing written ideas is the improvement of your learning. For example, starting a blog site can be a helpful tool in sharpening your writing skills, literacy, and thinking/idea creation. Creating your own platform will be beneficial in building an online portfolio that will allow you to keep track of your progress and build self-awareness at the back of that.

The benefits of blogging / writing regularly:

• It encourages independent learning and the development of different thinking habits.
• It helps you take greater control of your thought process around the information and ideas you consume.
• It inspires you to be a better reader, thinker and writer.
• It supports the use of the Internet to further learn, collaborate with the world and test out information and hypotheses.
• And due to the format being similar to that of a personal diary, blogs encourage informal expression and creativity.

Verbal communication

The necessity of increased video calls in your professional life presents an opportunity to learn the art of talking to people effectively. Throughout your education and career, the level of your presentation skills will often be the difference between getting your ideas to go further, create impact or not. Because of this, it might be helpful to make it a daily or weekly habit to record yourself with your phone or laptop presenting your ideas.

Over a period of a month, you will have footage that will offer a clearer indication of practical ways to improve.

The benefits of presenting information regularly:

• The development of communication skills that will help in acing job interviews.
• Effective public speaking skills help with career progression. A strong ability to present ideas shows confidence, creativity, critical thinking, and reasoning.
• Learning to speak up in class or meetings, and promoting your ideas, whilst presenting yourself as a valuable professional.
• Delivering presentations around your work is a good opportunity to meet new people and attract growth opportunities.

Another thing to consider: the university or college’s responsibility to equip alumnae to successfully work in different industries doesn’t only translate through academic success. It’s equally important to hone the personal attributes that will enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people and work in a global job market.