Are you applying for a new job? Would you like to improve your CV section dedicated to your “people competencies”? Or do you simply feel like you need to learn how to develop strong interpersonal skills?

Whatever your concern is, you have come to the right place. In this blog, we will discuss what interpersonal skills are and why they are important. We will also focus on how to develop strong interpersonal skills and how to make them stand out on your resume.

What are interpersonal skills?

Interpersonal skills are also called soft skills and refer to the behaviors we adopt when interacting with others. While hard skills are scalable and can be learned through specific job training, soft skills are not measurable and are universal, meaning that they can apply to any type of work.

Moreover, these skills do not relate only to the professional environment but refer to any aspect of life, including close relationships and friendships.

Learning how to develop strong interpersonal skills: why is it important for your career?

Learning to develop strong interpersonal skills can be crucial for your working experience. Nowadays, employers look for talented professionals who know how to approach their colleagues, communicate effectively, listen with empathy, and ensure successful teamwork.

Think about it in this way. Suppose that you are an electrical engineer. You know how to carry out your job brilliantly but you are part of a team and have a hard time interacting with the other members. Inevitably, your working performance will be affected negatively by this issue.

The lesson you can retrieve from this example is that you should never neglect the power and importance of interpersonal skills. Knowing how to work with other people can make a difference when it comes to business take-off and success. Furthermore, there are some jobs where soft competencies are even more essential. This is particularly true if you are working in customer support.

In case you didn’t know, there are multiple types of interpersonal skills, and most of them are complementary. Scroll down to discover each one of them.

Interpersonal skills: types and categories

Ever heard of problem-solving and active listening? Or flexibility and diplomacy? All these terms refer to specific interpersonal skills that fall into different categories. Here is a list of the most important ones:

• Communication
• Conflict management
• Collaboration
• Empathy
• Listening
• Leadership

Trying to develop strong interpersonal competencies in each of these categories can entail significant benefits to both your professional and social life. So, let’s examine these skill types one by one and see how they apply to practical situations:

• Communication refers to the ability to clearly and efficiently communicate with other people. Mastering communication competencies leads to successfully carrying out specific actions and tasks, such as public speaking, written reports, verbal and non-verbal communication, and more
• Conflict management concerns the attitude you adopt while handling problematic situations in the workplace. This skill is crucial whatever your level of experience and seniority is. Knowing how to seek solutions, listen actively, apply problem-solving, or embrace a mediator role can indeed make a difference in the development of your business
• Collaboration is also critical, especially for those employees who daily work in a team. Such competency entails the ability to value and respect your colleagues, understand team functioning, see both sides, and get along with other people to get the job done
• Empathy relates to the capacity of understanding and sharing the feelings of the other person. If you prove yourself to be kind and caring at the workplace, your interactions with your colleagues will significantly improve. This will lead to the creation of a positive and stimulating environment, thus better business results
• Listening is closely linked to the communication and empathy categories. Indeed, if you want to communicate effectively and put yourself in another person’s shoes, you need to know how to listen. This involves skills like curiosity and active listening. It also relates to the ability to focus and show others that you are focused
• Leadership entails the competency to foster motivation, encouragement, and interest in others. The leader role can be carried out by the head of the team or by any other member who shows strong mentoring skills. A good leader knows how to give constructive feedback and criticism and shows diplomacy and flexibility

5 ways to develop strong interpersonal skills

Interpersonal skills are essential components of emotional intelligence. This term refers to the ability to recognize and manage your emotions as well as the emotions of other people, both individually or in a group setting.

Understanding the emotions of another person allows you to adapt your actions and behaviors towards that person. That’s when interpersonal skills come in.

If you feel that you still need to learn how to develop strong interpersonal skills, here are 5 tips that will help you build new competencies and improve the ones you already have. These suggestions are tailored to the working environment but nothing prevents you from applying them to other daily-life situations.

1. Get informed

Search for as much information as you can. Visit websites dedicated to this topic or read books and follow classes from experts that explain how to develop strong interpersonal skills.

2. Select the areas you wish to improve

Identifying your areas of improvement is a huge step. It involves a lot of self-work and auto-criticism but it will eventually bear fruits. Indeed, knowing which are the exact competencies you wish to enhance will make your learning process faster, allowing you to be more effective.

3. Feedback is precious: ask your colleagues to give you their opinion

The best way to identify the interpersonal skills you need to work on is to ask for feedback from the people who interact with you daily. Colleagues, managers, coaches can help you spot your areas of improvement and provide you with wise advice.

4. Put your skills into practice

The best way to develop strong interpersonal skills is to practice them. Sometimes it will be a bit awkward, especially if you are not used to stepping up to the plate in a group setting. However, getting out of your comfort zone will undoubtedly make you grow and learn new things.

So, don’t be afraid to speak your mind during a team meeting or to take on leadership roles. Also, don’t hesitate to ask for feedback from your colleagues and try to be as self-critical as possible. Remember: without making mistakes, you will never have the opportunity to better yourself.

If you want more specific suggestions on how to practice your soft skills, here are some more in-depth tips that you can apply to your professional life:

• Control your emotions – try to always communicate in a calm, mindful way
• Practice empathy – adopt other people’s perspectives and find solutions that satisfy the team as a whole
• Practice active listening – one of the best ways to show your interlocutor that you respect them is to actively listen to them. When someone is talking to you, don’t hesitate to give non-verbal cues, like nodding your head. You can also rephrase what the other person has said. These are clear signals that you have been attentive and focused on the interaction with your colleague. Plus, it will help you remember the conversation more easily later on
• Be assertive – don’t be afraid to express your opinions and your limits. Try to be as confident and self-aware as possible
• Show a real interest in your colleagues – to enhance your relationship with the people you work closely with, there’s nothing better than actually getting to know them and show interest in what’s important to them

5. Keep on practicing

We’re not telling anything new when we say that no one is perfect and that there is always room for improvement in everything you do. This is particularly true when it comes to learning how to develop strong interpersonal skills. So, never stop practicing, especially since different job contexts may involve different competencies. Being aware that your growth never ends will give you all the means to succeed.

Learning how to develop strong interpersonal skills: a resource for your CV

You should never neglect to list your interpersonal skills on your CV. Employers look indeed for such competencies in their candidates, so, the more you include, the better.

There are different ways to refer to your soft skills in your resume. For example, you could simply organize them in a bulleted list or describe them in a summary at the top of your CV.

Our suggestion, however, is to create a bulleted list of your previous jobs and studies. For each one of them, you should indicate the interpersonal skills that you have developed. This will put your competencies into context, showing that you master them for real.

Find out more about how to write a good resume on our blog “Writing an awesome first CV”.

Conclusion

Learning how to develop strong interpersonal skills will allow you to boost your social and business relationships and help you succeed in your professional life.

If you want to deepen this subject and delve into the different categories of soft skills you can boost, go check out “Important interpersonal skills that employers value”.

Tags: Develop Strong Interpersonal Skills, Improving Soft Skills, Interpersonal Skills