What are professional skills? – Types of professional skills

Every professional must know ‘ what are professional skills?’, as professional skills are a crucial need for almost every profession. 

In this article, I will provide detailed information about ‘what are professional skills?’ and the type of professional skills. 

Professional Skills are the set of skills that are required in order to carry out a profession. There are some domain-specific professional skills and domain-general professional skills. Domain-general professional skills are also called professional skills, these are the set of  skills required in almost every profession. 

Professional skills are not taught in any college or university,  they are not even taught through any certification courses, professional skills are learnt by self determination and experiences. These skills are required beside the domain-specific skills in order to perform well in any profession. 

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. What are professional skills?
2. What are the types of professional skills?
3. What are top professional skills?
4. How to develop professional skills?
5. How would you describe your professional skills?

1. What are professional skills?

Professional skills are the common domain-general skills that are necessary in every profession, these skills are not taught but self learnt and developed, job recruiters demand the professional skills because  these skills support the domain-specific skills to perform well and reach Excellency. 

Let us understand this with an example. Suppose you want to choose software engineering as a profession,  in this scenario you need to learn some domain-specific professional skills like programming languages, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, software testing, security issues, cloud computing, Angular, DevOps etc. But  beside these skills  you need to learn and develop some professional skills like communication skills, critical thinking, problem solving ability, Leadership and teamwork skills etc for performing well.

The college, University or certification  teach you the  domain-specific skills you need to become a software engineer, But you need to learn and develop all the common professional skills required to be excellent with all those domain-specific skills. 

2. What are the types of professional skills?

Professional skills are basically of two types, Hard professional skill and Soft professional skill.

Let us understand this with example:

Take an example, you are a Computer engineer, in this profession you are required to have certain hard Professional skills Mathematics skills, programming language skill, Hardware knowledge, testing the codes and fixing the bugs in the code, you are required to have these skills in order to become a computer engineer.

1.Mathematics:  Aa a computer engineer  you need to deal with data,  and in order to deal with data you must learn mathematics.so mathematics is a hard professional skill which is compulsory in order to become a computer engineer.

2. Programming languages: You need to learn certain programming languages in order to communicate with computers. You may need to learn C, C++, Python etc. 

3.Hardware knowledge: As you work with computers, it is very necessary that you gain understanding about computer hardwares.

4. Testing codes and Debugging: You will be required to test the codes to find if the codes are written properly without error, if there is any issue then you need to fix them.

Now besides all these skills, you are required to have some soft-professional skills, especially needed for effectiveness and excellence in performance. They are communication skills, teamwork, management skill, problem solving skill, time management skill, flexibility etc. 

Here are some of the very important professional skills explained below:

5. Communication skill: Almost in every profession you need to communicate with people, this is the reason well communication skill is mandatory for almost every profession. You must have strong verbal and written communication skills, so that you can convey your ideas, thoughts and solutions to other people. You are also required to have a good command of language skill to communicate through a specific language. English is especially considered as the language for communicating internationally. Think once, you might be very excellent in programming languages but if you are unable to communicate with the people then this will become a stumbling block in your success. 

6. Teamwork: In most of the cases you need to work with a team, so having a willingness and skill in working in a team is considered as one of the necessary professional skills. Working with the other colleagues with a common goal to achieve is a common scenario in most of the organization. 

7. Management skill: Managing  your duties and the overall project responsibilities is also a vital need for every professional. You may be good in hard skills but if you do not know how to manage your work then there will be utter chaos. 

8. Problem Solving skill: In every industry there will be problems or challenges, they can be different in appearance but they are challenges or problems that need to be solved for smooth and progressive performance in the workplace. You must have an analytical approach to deal with the problems, keeping yourself cool in the time of challenges and detecting the issues to find the solution of the problem. Developing problem solving skills is a powerful professional skill, which is used in every industry. 

9. Time management skill: Completing a project on time and delivering the service is another most important professional skill. Let’s see you have done well in your work and completed the project but crossed the deadline of delivering the service, this failures in the time management will severely damage all your efforts and good works. 
10. Flexibility: Adopting the changes and keeping yourself flexible while facing changes is also a great professional skill you must develop. 

3. What are top professional skills? Or examples of professional skills

Some top professional skills, that you must learn and develop for better performance, which are also demanded by the recruiters in job profiles are listed below:

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Time management
• Negotiation and persuasion
• Problem solving
• Decision-making skills
• Leadership
• Creative thinking 
• Critical thinking
• Negotiation skills
• Organization
• Perseverance and motivation
• Ability to work under pressure
• Confidence
• Analytical skills
• IT skills
• Adaptability
• Listening
• Relationship building
• presentation
• Social skills
• Conflict resolution
• Team building
• Team management

4. How to develop professional skills?

Developing professional skills require your extra dedication and effort. The soft professional skills are not taught in any college or University or through any courses, you need to learn them in a practical workplace and develop them as soon as possible, the more you take these skills seriously faster you can learn and develop them. 

5. How would you describe your professional skills?

Most of the professional skills are commonly required in almost every industry. But in order to describe your professional skills in your resume or CV, first of all you must read the job profile properly and find out the professional skills they are requiring from you. 

Now, make a list of all those professional skills and describe them through some real time practical experience of your, where you exposed all those skills. 

Mentioning the professional skills is easy and common but proving that you have already learnt and developed those professional skills make a difference. 

Key Takeaways from ‘what are professional skills?’:

There will always be competition in the workplace and many people will approach for the same few vacancies in a quality job profile. What will make you stand out is not only being expert in hard skills rather being expert in professional skills too besides the hard skills. 

Remember the lack of professional skills can bring a tremendous damage in one’s professional career. 

So, it is always a great and smart decision to learn and develop the professional skills that actually every industry is looking for. 

• Develop your communication skill, in speaking, listening, writing and presentation. 
• Be a creative thinker to make the work process simpler yet effective enough.
• Be a problem solver in the time of challenges.
• Learn to work in a team with a common goal to achieve with success.
• Manage time in your workplace in all your duties and responsibilities.
• Develop the ability to work under pressure and prove your performance.

All these professional skills will make your professional career brighter and present you as a better person to be appreciated by others and also help you to grow. 

Let me know your suggestion in the comment section below for adding more life to this article and helping others to grow.

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