Today, having the prerequisite skills for the job you’re applying for might not always be enough.
With many applicants vying for the same position (and with the same essential career skills) – it’s the right soft skills that will set you apart.
Soft skills are character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person’s ability to interact well with others.
These typically appear in job ads as: “strong communication skills,” and “able to work well with a team.”
However, there are other lesser-known career-boosting skills besides these that can help set you apart from the competition.
Yes, these skills might not be directly related to your work from home job, but they do make you easier to work with, which can get you farther.
Here are some of the most underrated career skills worth cultivating:
The Ability to Form Genuine Connections
One of the most common challenges remote workers face is the lack of face-to-face interactions with their team. This causes feelings of isolation and increases their likelihood of experiencing burnout.
Additionally, networking is more challenging in an online work from home setup.
Thus, one of the most underrated career skills is the ability to form genuine connections.
This helps you build trust and rapport with your team, despite not physically seeing each other. This, in turn, enhances collaboration and reduces workplace conflicts.
Furthermore, this can also open up more mentorship opportunities for you and improve your career growth.
Dependability
Since they can’t physically monitor their remote employees, employers want someone they won’t need to babysit.
Being dependable not only builds trust between you and your client but also reduces bottlenecks and improves your team’s overall performance.
Finally, consistently meeting your deadlines on time also improves your work-life balance since it removes the need to work overtime.
Teachability
Life is a continuous learning process.
Many of us assume that our current skills are enough at a certain point in our careers, making us stubborn and inflexible.
Instead, strive to be teachable.
Don’t take constructive criticism personally, but as an opportunity to improve and grow.
More often than not, employers prefer hiring a teachable novice than a more experienced one who thinks they know everything.
Risk Taking
In the immortal words of Shia Labeouf: “Do it! Just do it!”
Opportunities won’t just fall into your lap. Most of the time, you must seek them out.
Of course, leaving our comfort zones isn’t easy.
However, you’ll never know what you’re really capable of if you remain there forever.
Who knows? Taking this leap of faith might be the big break you’ve been waiting for. In fact, that’s how I gained my current online writing job.
The Ability to Fail Well
Nobody’s perfect.
Taking risks always comes with the possibility of failure.
However, what separates outliers from others is how they recover from it.
That’s why one of the hardest and most underrated career skills is handling failure.
Failures often come with hard lessons that are key to success next time. It also keeps us humble and motivates us to continue improving ourselves.
Aside from learning from our failures, we must also learn to process our emotions regarding them.
It’s okay to feel down and disappointed after failing. However, this shouldn’t dissuade us from trying next time. Doing so helps build our resilience and self-confidence.
Overlooked? Maybe. Invaluable? Definitely.
Cultivating a thriving work from home job today takes more than just meeting all the requirements in the job ad.
By honing the underrated career skills above, you can foster better relationships with your team and take your career to the next level.
Still looking for online job opportunities? If so, Remote Staff is here to help.
Our jobs list contains plenty of positions to choose from. These range from virtual assistant jobs and online transcription jobs to online design jobs and online engineering jobs.
So, what are you waiting for? Sign up here. Good luck!
