Here are 10 crusial soft skills that will help your career in IT, not to mention life in general!
Communication
As an IT pro, you’ll need to be able to communicate well with your supervisors and colleagues to help them solve technology issues and better harness the power of their tech tools. If you’re a developer or work in IT security, you’ll need to work well on teams and communicate your ideas well with coworkers. Almost every IT job requires good communication skills, both verbal and written – email communication will likely be a big part of your job. Technology is not a solitary field, despite how it’s often portrayed. If you enjoy teaching people about technology and explaining technical subjects in terms anyone can understand, a career in IT could be for you. CIO Magazine, for example, recognizes the need for strong communication skills in the IT space. In a recent article by the magazine, CompTIA’s James Stanger stated that soft skills are one of the seven hot career trends in the future.
Organization
Being organized makes you more efficient and productive at work. Many IT careers are dynamic, giving you the opportunity to jump around to several different projects and tasks. Multitasking can be an important skill – but only if you can properly organize yourself. The ability to keep track of things such as your schedule and daily tasks is essential and so, too, is being able to chunk and prioritize your daily responsibilities efficiently. If organization and time management come easily to you, your role in the technology sector might also.
Analytical Abilities
Being analytical gives you a major edge in IT, where you’re expected to find logical solutions to problems frequently. Analytical abilities allow you to diagnose technology issues and fix them. They enable you to do things like figure out why a line of code isn’t yielding a desired result or why a server’s down. If you have an analytical mind, you might even identify problems before they arise, or maybe you feel compelled to take things apart to get a better idea of how they work. If this is the case, you’re probably an IT pro in the making. Examples of analytical abilities include the ability to create – and read – pivot tables in a spreadsheet, identify trends over time and identify key performance indicators. It’s also important to learn how to identify critical events and eliminate outliers from data sets.
Creativity
Creativity may not be a stated requirement for all IT jobs, but it’s a useful talent in many of them. If tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs hadn’t been creative, they would have never come up with their groundbreaking products and revolutionary ideas. Even if you don’t aspire to be the next Bill Gates, your tech job will probably require you to come up with ideas to improve processes or products or to help coworkers find innovative solutions to their tech problems. In fact, one of the major requirements in today’s IT jobs is the ability to use technology creatively to fulfill a particular business need or create a solution that helps the company move forward.
Project Management
As an IT professional, chances are, you’ll be juggling multiple projects and responsibilities, and being able to meet deadlines and hit benchmarks is critical. Good project management involves the ability to make professional plans, set and reach goals, and work with colleagues to resolve project issues. A natural aptitude for project management would make you a great fit for many careers in technology. Refined project management skills also give you an edge if you want to move into a leadership position. Being able to consistently bring projects to fruition with the help of colleagues can definitely win you accolades from the higher ups and slate you for promotions into positions that require more responsibility.
Perseverance
If you don’t give up easily on difficult tasks, you could go far in a technology job. The best IT professionals are willing to tinker around persistently with a particular technology to find solutions to challenges even when everyone else has given up. Technology jobs also require a commitment to learning and self-growth – as practices and technology tools are always changing. You have to be able to persevere as new information and new challenges are thrown your way. When the going gets tough, the most stellar IT pros stick with it and reap the rewards.
Problem Solving
Do you like solving puzzles? As mentioned, IT jobs are some of the best jobs for problem solving. Ever spent hours trying to figure out why your personal computer, printer or phone isn’t doing what you want it to and had fun doing it? An information technology career might be right up your alley. A lot of the technical skills you need for various careers in IT can be picked up through tinkering and trial and error, so problem-solving abilities are necessary for your entrance into the field.
Resourcefulness
Part of being resourceful in IT involves being able to find technology, software and products that enhance your own productivity and the productivity of others. IT professionals who know how to use available resources well tend to shine in their jobs. And IT workers who are consistently interested in seeking out new resources often have an edge. Resourcefulness is especially handy for those with less technology experience – like career changers. You don’t have to always have the answer – you just need to know how to find it.
Curiosity
Finding enjoyment in learning new things and genuinely wanting to know how things work are major plusses for IT workers. In general, curiosity about the inner workings of devices will get you far in IT. The best security professionals, for example, have an innate sense of curiosity about how things work underneath the hood, like how to penetrate systems. Without this sense of curiosity, they would most likely not be as creative in applying security controls to company processes.
Interest in Helping Others
Although IT isn’t traditionally thought of as a “helping” field like medicine or social work, a big part of almost every technology job involves helping people, whether you’re creating new technology that makes people’s lives easier or helping them figure out ways around technology hurdles. Information technology jobs are some of the best careers for people who love to help others. The ability to work as a team is critical, as noted in this article, where CompTIA was asked about the importance of teamwork as perhaps the most vital soft skill.
Source : https://www.comptia.org/career-change/exploring-it/skills-for-it
