As a programmer, there are some lines of code that you must develop within yourself: soft skills. Of course, your knowledge, training and experience are your best assets to apply for a better paying job or to get a job at a company like Google. But it’s your soft skills that will help you close the deal. Nowadays, the best tech companies in the world are recruiting professionals based on their education and experience and their social, emotional, and communication skills. If you are looking to improve your employability, find a tech job that will help you grow professionally or be recruited by international companies, start by developing these soft skills that are key for every programmer:
Five soft skills you must have as a programmer if you want to find a job quickly
Adaptability
Coping with change and adapting to it is one of the most vital soft skills for programmers in our profession. Remember that this industry evolves very quickly. For example, tomorrow, a new language may emerge that we will have to learn to use and other new developments and changes that we will have to adjust to keep up to date. Also, no project, objective or feature is rigid. If there is a change requested by the client, you will have to orient your work process to accommodate it. A good programmer must be flexible and not locked into one way of doing things. Changes happen when you least expect them, and working in this soft skill provides valuable tools to avoid feeling uncomfortable.
Communication skills
During our professional journey, we learn all about programming languages. But sometimes, we leave out the most important language: communicating with others.The chances are that your work as a programmer will be in a team, so knowing how to communicate and collaborate with them is a really important soft skill to work on as soon as possible. Remember that although it may seem like it’s you and your computer alone against the world, you will probably have to discuss your progress, lead a team, pitch your ideas to your boss, or make a presentation to a client if you are freelancing.
It is also important to know that one person cannot do everything. At some point, you will need to ask a colleague to help you exchange knowledge and find solutions to a problem. Working in a team sometimes works better than working alone. But you need to be able to communicate your needs and not shy away from them.
Communicating accurately and effectively will always be a highly valued skill as a programmer and in your personal life. In addition, major projects have been rejected or not even considered simply because of a failure to communicate well. And major misunderstandings have arisen because of a failure to express yourself clearly.
Creativity
Far from being a natural gift, creativity is one of the soft skills that can be developed by putting them into practice. Being creative helps us to generate interesting ideas for projects, interfaces, apps and functions that others can enjoy. Moreover, since our creativity drives us to continuously create new projects, practice helps us to become better programmers. Creativity proposes original approaches to finding solutions to problems that have not been thought of before. In fact, many of the greatest tech creations came from a creative ideas to solve a problem in people’s lives. But to get there is not a matter of inspiration but of constantly exercising it until our minds are able to generate ideas easily and see opportunities. Working on your creativity will bring you closer to that innovative application or idea that will be used all over the world.
Problem Solving
Programming is often fraught with many challenges that can frustrate or slow down your workflow. On many occasions, the problem is not with the code itself but with our ability to solve an obstacle. For more than one problem, there are several possible solutions. However, getting stuck in frustration or clinging to a single way out of a problem clouds us and prevents us from seeing other approaches to solving it quickly and efficiently. Moreover, not knowing how to solve a problem at the right time can cause us to overestimate it. By not being able to see the way out of the problem clearly, we believe that it is extremely difficult, perpetuating the cycle of stagnation. Problem-solving is a soft skill about our ability to break more significant problems down into smaller, individual problems.
Knowing how to choose the most appropriate solution and not relying on a single escape route. Developing this soft skill for programmers makes us more competent, agile and even more creative as we start to think outside the box to come up with the most appropriate solution. Learning to break down these huge problems into smaller obstacles and solving them in an orderly fashion gives you clarity and allows you to get on with your day’s work.
Stress management
Have you ever wondered how there are colleagues who, in spite of having a lot of projects assigned to them, a lot of tasks or problems with the code, emanate a super calm and relaxed aura? It’s because these people have developed the soft skill of stress management and don’t let it interfere with their mental health, productivity and work. Try as we might, avoiding stress is almost impossible. Our routine forces us to move fast, to have everything yesterday and to keep on creating. Facing stressful situations will be part of your day-to-day life as a programmer. The important thing is that you learn to manage it and channel it so that it does not limit your talent.