Looking for a job with limited job experience on your resume can feel intimidating. And even while having specific technical skills may land you an interview, standing apart during the interview process may require demonstrating more than just the essential job skills for that position.

Additional skills, such as soft skills, are high-demand character traits that can help you get ahead on the job — they give you openness to new experiences and perspectives, increase your problem-solving capacity, and drive your likelihood to advance professionally.

Even when you feel like your experience is lacking, developing and highlighting your soft skills can help you land a job you’ll love. Here’s a description of three top soft skills and how you can showcase them during an interview to stand out from other candidates.

Top 3 Soft Skills

Work Ethic

Ethical behavior on the job includes demonstrating a clear understanding between right and wrong. Personal ethics also fuels other positive behaviors like productivity. Practical evidence of personal ethics, such as not being distracted by your cell phone during an interview, communicates professionalism and integrity. Timeliness is another quality of work ethic — arriving to the interview and completing necessary paperwork on time demonstrate your sense of responsibility and discipline.

Communication skills

Effectively expressing yourself on the job includes both your oral and written skills. Whether you’re in sales and spend a large portion of your workday interacting with customers and other businesses, or if your job requires concentrated teamwork with a particular group of coworkers, effective communication skills are critical in industries across the board when it comes to building trust.

In addition to speaking, when your communication skills during the interview process include actively listening and asking thoughtful questions, you give both hiring managers and future coworkers a sense of confidence in your ability to correctly comprehend and execute work tasks and ask for help when you need it.

Interpersonal Skills

Along with being an effective communicator, interpersonal skills also impact your ability to interact with your management, colleagues, and customers. Skills like making eye contact during conversation make others aware of your empathy––giving a sense that you’re able to understand another’s perspective. As well, interpersonal skills like humor and sensitivity can enhance your public speaking and networking abilities.

If you are interested in developing your soft skills and are looking for career opportunities, contact ICR today to learn more about the positions we have available.