According to research conducted by Bloomberg, Africa was revealed to be among the 2% of the world's global list of unemployment. The level of joblessness recorded in Nigeria has more than tripled in the last decade.
This is to say as more schools graduate students the number of available jobs keeps decreasing drastically. The Bureau of Statistics also published a paper that proved that 33.3% of employable youths were jobless, 60% of those employed were more than age 34, keeping the index at 35.2% for women and 31.8% for men.
The current trend of inflation and lack of job opportunities implies that means of survival are greatly impacted. Graduates from prestigious schools we realized were taught just technical knowledge or what is referred to as "hard skills", for example, the doctor only understands to diagnose a patient and prescribe drugs, the chemist knows his ways about the laboratory but doesn't have a good relationship with other people within the company, projects are not always timely delivered, rivalries exist in the office and no one to resolve the issues and the list goes on.
At this rate, it begs the question if there exists any leadership structure or better still how are potential customers retained within the firm? In a bid to bridge the gap between having lots of intelligent staff with little or no conversion ratio, soft skill acquisition becomes very imminent. Peggy Klaus said something very daunting, "soft skills get little respect but will make or break your career".
Having the technical knowledge is very important but to communicate properly with potential customers and have them locked in would require more than just that. Soft skills range from being able to manage time, emotional intelligence, managing relationships, negotiation skills, communication skills, decision making, integrity skills, as well a positive attitude at the workstation.
Most goals within an organization are time-bound, accomplishing tasks on/before the slated time would be a major bonus. An individual properly equipped with these skill sets is more employable, seeing that he is proactive, enjoys workflows, communicates efficiently, can broker and seal good deals, respects and maintains good working relationships among same level and senior management staff, as hierarchy and proper chain of communication needs be observed within the organization, and most importantly is more successful at his chosen career. This is not to say such an individual is a superhuman, no!
The corporate world is transitioning from having just book smart people to folks that understand what it takes to get the job done. This proves the connectivity between soft skills and job performance.
Finally, these skills can be learnt via organizing training sessions, seminars, and workshops. The internet has become a worthy tool for advancing one's career, a lot of self-paced e-learning platforms have arisen to administer these tools that guarantee efficiency within the corporate world and an all-around success to the business and the individual.
Our soft skills training program is free for every unemployed young person looking to improve their ability to communicate effectively, think critically, solve problems creatively and so much more.
The training would prepare you for success in the workplace and reach your full potential.
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