The Top 4 Soft Skills You Need to Find a Job in a COVID-19 Job Market

There are 38.6 million people are out of a job. At one point, all of them will be looking for work. You may be looking for a job.

States are beginning to reopen, but it will not be the same as before. As many as 7.5 million small businesses are at risk of closing. Those that do stay open may not have the resources to rehire all the employees they had pre-coronavirus.

The competition for the few remaining jobs will be fierce.

For those businesses with the financial wherewithal to maintain and hire new employees, it will be a buyer's market.

Only those candidates with the right set of skills will survive and succeed in the new COVID-19 economy.

You cannot control how the world acts. You can only control what you focus on.

During the pandemic, most people are at home learning how to bake bread, binge watching Netflix, and complaining about how hard wearing while shopping at Trader Joe's is hard.

Winners, the top of 1% of talent, are developing the skills they need to stand out from their competition—all 38.6 million of them.

Mastering any of these 4 soft skills will set you apart from everyone else. You will be in the 10% of all candidates.

A top candidate in a job search is more than being a good programmer or engineer, the best mechanic, or knowing multiple languages.

They are someone who has mastered all 4 Soft Skills and they will never be out of a job.

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are subjective, interpersonal, and hard to quantify. They are as much a behavior as a learned skill. Each one is personal and relationship driven. Hard skills are teachable and measurable. They are learned in a classroom setting (real world or online).

Soft skills build cultures of innovation, develop leaders, close deals, overcome crises, communicate vision and mission to employees and customers, create amazing careers and businesses, and establish teams that are adaptable, resilient, and solve problems.

According to a survey by CareerBuilder, 77% of employers believe soft skills are just as important as hard skills. And 16% say soft skills are more important than hard skills.

These 4 soft skills are the ones you need to find a job, build a great career, and establish yourself as a leader in your field in a COVID-19 World.

The 1st Skill: BE THE CEO OF YOUR LIFE

All entities - countries, companies, nonprofit organizations, and people - deal with the same basic financial realities, and always have. They have money that comes in (i.e., revenue) and money that goes out (i.e., expenses) which, when netted, makes up their net income. -Ray Dalio

The old rules have been thrown out. You are hired not to fill a position and collect a paycheck. Today, your job is to create something of value, and eliminate current and future challenges.

Though you may have a boss, you should not think of yourself as an employee working for a prescribed wage. Instead, you are the CEO of Your Life with assets, liabilities, and employees (I call them children and cats). In many ways your life is a balance sheet with a specific ROI (return on investment) and ROE (return on equity) that guide your decisions.

If you are the CEO of Your Life - and you are - then your employer or prospective employer is your client. When a customer has a need, businesses want to be the first thought when that need is present. When an employer has a need to fill, you want them to think of you.

Mastering one or more of these specific skills, acquiring certain experiences, will make you stand out in a sea of resumes and magnify the brand that is You Inc.

Developing both soft and hard skills, getting the education and certifications to establish yourself as leadership in your field, leading teams, closing deals, working through employee conflict, is you building your brand. They are more than pretty words on your resume. With them you stand out as a candidate in every job search, you become the name every recruiter wants to know. With the right set of skills, you build the career and life you want.

Listed with each skill are several courses to help you gain proficiency and give you a path towards mastery. Obviously there is more than one road towards mastery, so do your homework before moving forward.

When You Are the CEO of Your Life you view life as a series of opportunities. Your job becomes a business you want to grow and expand. Not growing in your job or business is you choosing to fail.

CEOs take charge of their companies. As the CEO of Your Life take charge of your career, take charge of your life. Do not allow circumstances determine whether you have a job or not.

Don't leave your career your career up to chance.

Just as CEOs have an overarching vision for their businesses, you must have a vision for your life and career.

CEOs invest in their businesses. As the CEO of Your Life you need to invest in your career. And it starts with these skills.

Today, right now, choose to be the CEO of Your Life.

Now let's get you to work.

The 2nd Skill: LEADERSHIP

If a resume tells the story of your career, then leadership is the first chapter in your story. Once a recruiter, hiring manager, or C-level executive begins a deep dive into your resume, they want to know if you are leader and if your leadership led to multiple successful conclusions. Your resume and any subsequent interview must entail how you:

Lead People

Overcome Challenges

Create Opportunities

As you determine the direction of your career, ask yourself what is your LOC?

Who have you led?

Which crises have you overcome and the lessons you learned from them?

And, perhaps most important, how you created value for your organization and people?

Recruiters want to see a track record of collaboration and how you influenced successful outcomes in complex organizations and projects. Your resume should demonstrate evidence of managing and coaching high functioning teams that deliver on their accountabilities. If you have more senior level experience, you are expected to have mentored emerging talent to greater levels of responsibility.

Your leadership experience will establish a strong work ethic as well as be able to draw it out in others.

Recruiters want to see:

• You had an impact on the bottom line
• Skills relevant to the position
• You are a strategic thinker
• You are a decision maker

Leaders have:

• Personal credibility
• Outstanding written communication skills
• Strong negotiation skills
• Excellent problem solving and decision-making skills
• Strong interpersonal and presentation skills
• Good judgment
• The ability to communicate with a diverse range of senior stakeholders

Leaders embrace an agile mindset where they develop the appropriate processes to get things done.

Leaders tout effective organizational skills and develop the activities to achieve impactful outcomes.

Leaders make their teams and businesses better.

Sample keyword skills and responsibilities to use in your resume and LinkedIn profile to show a high level business acumen:

Finance and/or large-scale budget development, management and administration experience, project management, strategic workforce planning, analytics, organizational development, talent planning and pipelining, and cultural transformations

What if you don't have leadership experience?

Those candidates who do not have the necessary experience to move forward into a leadership position need to learn how maximize their prove they are a problem solver and understand the challenges their company is facing. If you are applying for a new position, on your resume, highlight your LOC. Who have you lead? What opportunities have you exploited. What value have you created for your previous employers.

When all else you need create opportunities for yourself. The best path to leadership is to lead. It's that simple. Go create something.

When you don't have the experience, then you must create it. You do that by:

• Volunteering
• Blogging
• Starting a business
• Leading a project at your current job

What you lack in experience, make up for it with education and learning new skills. When you are done, list the certificate you earn on your LinkedIn profile, and if appropriate for the job you're apply to, your resume. Remember, you should tailor your resume to each individual job. You should not send the same resume to every job post.

5 Great Leadership Courses and Certifications (complete one course and certification)

Two Certifications That Net Over $100k

Project Management

More business leaders are finding project managers are a necessary component to business success. These leaders use their expertise and skills to help their teams establish and reach organizational goals. Senior executives and HR managers look for candidates with this specific skillset and certification to implement key strategic initiatives, deliver innovation, drive change, and ensure projects align with the goals of the company. Project managers are credentialed through Project Management Institute (PMI).

A certified project manager is a good way to show you have credentialed leadership. According Northeastern University, the median salary for a certified project managers in the United States is $119,235. Project managers without a certification from PMI earn $99,070 annually.

Six Sigma certification

Six Sigma is a data-driven approach using a series of techniques and tools to improve process results by eliminating defects and redundant procedures. Six Sigma methodology uses specific measurement tools to help companies work on their weaknesses and focus more on a company's strengths. 

With a Six Sigma certification you can position yourself as a change agent and able to apply this skillset to multiple industries. You gain a better understanding of overall business processes. Salary.com reports the nationwide median salary for a Six Sigma Black Belt is $119,800.

The 3rd Skill: SALES

Nothing happens in business unless there is a sale.

What do Mark Cuban, Howard Schultz, Warren Buffett, and John Paul DeJoria have in common? Other than each being a billionaire, they all started their careers in sales.

Leadership guru John C. Maxwell defines leadership as influence. Sales people are the very definition of influence. The success or failure of an organization runs in direct proportion to the success or failure its sale team.

To succeed in sales, you need to be gritty, empathetic, knowledgeable about your product, customers, and industry. Sales is the Opportunity and Create Value part of your LOC.

Sale people are the ultimate problem solvers. That's their job. It is also the one position based on merit. The more you sell, the more you make. Every job requires some sort of selling. Without it, you will not succeed.

The median pay in 2018 for a sales manager according to US News and Report was $124,220.

The best way to learn something is to do it. These two courses make a good starting point.

I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don't hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales. - Zig Ziglar

And if everyone is in sales, then you must learn to negotiate.

The 4th Skill: NEGOTIATION

Negotiation is a key leadership skill. The difference between good and great leaders is their ability to negotiate deals and relationships. Mastery of this skill maximizes value for you and your employer.

A master negotiator creates the right strategy to deliver the best deals for her company and customers. There is added benefit when negotiating terms for your salary.

"Senior leaders negotiate everything from strategy to corporate restructuring, and mid-level leaders must manage projects, tasks and people. All of these activities require negotiation, and the better the leaders are at it, the more value they can reap for their company and for themselves." Daniel Shapiro, founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program [referenced in the Economist]

Strong communication skills and creating influence are key traits of a good negotiator. Hiring managers and recruiters want to see on your resume and in an interview you have closed deals, negotiated terms with vendors, successfully managed conflict, and sold senior management to move forward with a new idea.

Master negotiators have a long term view of their career. They do more than close deals. These master negotiators are leaders with resolve conflict, manage employees, convince key stakeholders to sign off specific projects, and are the best recruiters of talent in their organization.

The ability to negotiate is your career's greatest asset. Learn this skill, and fast.

3 Courses to Improve Your Negotiation Skills

Embrace the Opportunity

In a pandemic with 38.6 million people, it is understandable to feel hopeless, do nothing and hope for the best. It would be easy to throw your hands up in the air and give up.

What can you do in the middle of a pandemic?

The answer is...a lot.

If there is a 5th Skill it would be networking. Connect with your network. Ask how they are doing and ask if you can help them in any way. Even if you do it for free. It is one way to build experience, it is also another way to get your foot in the door. Get comfortable networking online. Join groups on LinkedIn. Especially alumni organizations. Email alumni and ask if they have time to talk.

Most people don't have a strong network. Start today. Grow you LinkedIn connections to over 1000. Connect with me and if you need help let me know.

You cannot give up. Use this time to hone your leadership and negotiating skills, reach out to your network and offer to help them in anyway. Start a business. You can write a book which offer solutions to your previous clients top 3 biggest problems. Then sell it them. Or, use it as opening to get an interview for a job.

Remember You Are the CEO of Your Life. Take charge of it. Don't allow circumstances to determine your destiny. A career is in the telling. Create the story you want.

_________________________

The past 20 years I recruited the top 1% of talent across many industries and set up partnerships with technology companies. I know how to make candidates and businesses stand out from the competition. If you need help with your resume, business, or determining a new path for yourself or business, connect with me on LinkedIn and mention this article. I'll do what I can.