While your technical skills will get you a job interview, your soft skills can help you land the job and also work harmoniously with clients. Here is a look at some of the must-have soft skills you need to hone.
• Listening actively:
Listening carefully and patiently will stand you in good stead when collecting business requirements, gathering information to create status reports and providing internal service to clients.
• Negotiating effectively:
Good negotiations skills are invaluable when you are discussing development resources with IT or helping business users and IT find the middle ground. They are also especially helpful when you are trying to communicate issues regarding project scope to business users.
• Solving problems efficiently:
Brainstorming and employing other proven techniques of problem solving help you identify the root cause of the problem and come up with potential solutions.
• Good technical writing skills:
As an IT consultant, you will be required to create project documentation, where you present information coherently and usefully. Well developed technical writing skills are important to make an impression in such a case.
• Team building:
If you will be leading or advising ad-hoc teams, you need to possess the skills needed to structure and co-ordinate teams efficiently.
• Thinking strategically:
Strategic thinking is not just aimed at developing effective solutions but also involves taking a novel approach and coming up with innovative solutions.
• Handling conflicts:
Disagreements, missed deadlines and tensions can be handled will a cool head if you have an understanding of formalized conflict handling techniques.
Presenting projects:
Presenting project scope, plans, and timeline to business management and IT teams could be part of your job. You need to have good public speaking and presentation skills to communicate designs, solutions, project outline, business requirements and project status effectively.
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