Transcript: “Listening Time” Episode 68

Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. He everybody, this is Conner, and you're
listening to Episode 68 of the Listening Time podcast. I want to thank all of my Listening
Time Members, Super Members and Family Members for supporting me and supporting
this podcast, and for helping me do what I do. Remember that if you want my help to
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make sure to sign up to become a Listening Time Family Member if you want two new
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Okay, so in today's episode, we're going to talk about soft skills. This is a really
important topic, especially for people who are looking for a job or people that are
already working at a company and they feel like they want to improve in different areas
to help them work better with other people or just stand out from the crowd. In English,
when we say that you “stand out from the crowd,” we’re saying that you are different
and people can notice you because you have some characteristic or you do something
that other people don't do that makes people notice you in particular. So, this is
“standing out from the crowd.” So, if you have good soft skills, you can stand out from
the crowd. And maybe you can get hired over other candidates for certain jobs, or
maybe you can move up in your career more easily if you have these skills. So, I think
this is an important topic.
Remember that you have the transcript available for this episode. That's in the
Episode Description below this episode. So, just go down and click on that if you need
it. And if you like this podcast, then please give it a five-star rating and share it with your
friends, your family members, anyone else who you know that's learning English and
help this podcast grow.
Alright, let's get started. Okay, so first of all, what are soft skills? Well, these are
personal skills that can help you in any profession, and that can help you work better
with other people. Okay? So, the opposite of soft skills would be hard skills or technical
skills. These are skills that are very specific to your field of work. For example, if you're
a programmer and you know a certain programming language, this wouldn't be a soft
skill, right? That would be a hard skill or a technical skill. A soft skill is a skill that you can
bring to any job position, any company, and it will help you thrive in that position. In
English, when we say that you “thrive,” we're saying that you do really well in some
context, okay? So, if you thrive in a certain environment, that means you do really well
in that environment. It's kind of natural for you.
So, let's talk about some different soft skills. First, let's talk about the one that I
think might be the most important one. You might agree or disagree, but I think it's
probably the number one soft skill. And this is communication. I consider this to be the
most important soft skill because if you have a lot of technical skills, even if you have
some of these other soft skills that we're going to talk about, if you're lacking
communication, this will always hurt you in terms of finding a job or working well with
your co-workers or moving up in your career. It's really hard to do these things without
good communication.
And this is something that I noticed a lot when I do job interview preparation
classes with certain students, when we do some practice interviews, is they have a
really good work experience, and they have a great CV, and they look like a great
candidate on paper, but when we actually do the interview questions, they're really
lacking in this domain, in communication. They're not able to talk well to another person,
and they don't make the other person feel well, or feel good, when they're talking to
them. And that's a key thing that we should all practice.
So, if you have good communication, you'll be able to do very well in many
environments because people will like to talk to you. People will consider you a good
person if you can communicate well. So, it's important to make sure that you practice
with this skill and really think about how other people around you are receiving your
words, your communication, and really put yourself in their shoes. In English, when we
say that you “put yourself in someone else's shoes,” this means that you imagine
yourself in their position, okay?
So, it's really important to put yourself in other people's shoes to imagine how
they might feel when you say certain words, certain expressions, or whatever. This is
important because if you're only thinking about the goal or your objective when you
communicate with someone else, this might not come across very well when you're
talking to someone. In English when we use the phrasal verb “come across,” we’re
talking about how someone communicates or how a message is communicated. So, if I
say “He came across very arrogant,” I'm saying that the way I received his
communication, the way I perceived him in the way he talked is that he's an arrogant
person. So, that's “come across,” okay? So, as you can see, communication is very
important because if you lack good communication skills, other people might not have a
good image of you.
Alright, next, let's talk about teamwork. This is another really important soft skill
because nowadays, a lot of people in, maybe, most industries have to work with other
people. Even if you don't have formal teams, you probably need to work with other
people, and you probably need to depend a little bit on the other people and your
company, and they probably depend a little bit on you. And so, it's very important to be
able to work cohesively with other people. When we say that you work “cohesively” with
someone, it just means that you both work in a way that helps each other out, and it's
smooth, you guys don't fight, you have good communication. All of that is included in
this phrase, when we say that you work “cohesively” with other people. So, that's a very
crucial skill to have.
And if you've ever been on a team before, either in work, school or any other
environment, and there's one person on the team that just doesn't work well with the
other people, you know that this can be really annoying. This can be painful, and this
can make the process really hard. And you might not be able to reach your goal on time,
and there might be conflict within the group. Even if that person has good technical
skills, even if they're a good speaker and they have other communication skills, if they
lack this teamwork skill, then it really makes it hard for everyone else, right? So,
teamwork is also a crucial skill to have.
Next, let's talk about leadership. I think I already talked about this in another
episode, if I'm not mistaken. I've done a lot of episodes now, so I kind of forget which
topics I've already talked about. But I'm pretty sure that I've already talked about
leadership. And a lot of people, a lot of students that I have when we're practicing with
interviews, they ask me, “Do I really need to talk about my leadership skills, because I'm
not going to be a leader in this company that I'm applying to. I'm not going to be a
manager, so I don't really need to think about my leadership skills and talk about that
during this interview. Right?”
And I tell them that they actually need to show their leadership skills and be able
to demonstrate these skills even if they're not going to be in a leadership position.
Companies don't only expect leadership from managers, right? They expect a lot of their
workers, or maybe all of their workers, to have some sort of leadership skills to take the
initiative, to help other people, to guide new workers, to lead teams, whatever. They
expect people to be able to do this even if it's not in their job description.
Companies, managers, employers… they like workers that are able to lead even
if that's not their position. I'm not saying that you need to have a lot of experience
leading teams and leading other people. You just need to show that if the occasion
arises, you're able to be a leader in some sense, maybe not in a formal sense, but you
can demonstrate these skills. That's something that's important for employers, and
that's something that you can talk about in an interview. And if you're in a job interview,
it's very likely that the interviewer can ask you some question related to your leadership
experience or your leadership skills even if you're not applying for a management
position. Okay?
Alright, next, let's talk about negotiation skills. This is one that I don't really have.
I'm not very good at negotiation. So, this is a soft skill that I can definitely improve in.
So, if you have good negotiation skills, this is going to help you in a lot of different
contexts, in a lot of different situations. So, this soft skill can help you in a lot of areas,
even just outside of your job. For example, even when you're interviewing for a job, if
you have good negotiation skills, you can probably get a better contract. Or if you're in
some other context, if you're just buying something else, a car or whatever, you might
be able to use these skills to get a better deal when you buy these things.
Or just in general, you'll be able to really get what you deserve, what you feel like
you deserve in different situations if you're able to negotiate well. If you're able to show
the other person that you deserve more, or you're able to show the other person that it's
okay if they give you a little bit more, that they're still going to get a good deal. Right? If
you have the skill to show the other person that they're getting a good deal even though
they're giving you more, this is a skill that's going to help you in many different
situations. And like I said, I don't really have this skill. So, I often lose when I'm trying to
negotiate with people. I don't do this very well. And I think that I can improve in this area
so that I don't get taken advantage of in different situations. So, this is one that I need to
work on.
Next, let's talk about problem solving skills. So, this is another really important
one in any context: being able to solve problems when they arise. Of course, sometimes
this involves technical skills. Obviously, if there's a technical problem, and you have the
technical skills to solve that problem, that's going to help you. But obviously, in general,
there are some people that are just more skilled at dealing with the unknown or dealing
with surprises or dealing with problems that arise when you least expect it. Right? I've
known many people like this, and I see their skill in accepting the problem, analyzing it
quickly, coming up with a solution, acting very fast. It's very impressive.
I feel like I'm lacking a little bit in this skill. This is something that I can work on
more, I think, and I can work on, maybe, not getting too flustered when a problem arises
or something unexpected arises. In English, when we say that you're “flustered,” it's
kind of like saying that something causes you to lose your composure and you don't
know what to do and you're a little bit confused and you're not able to act decisively. In
those cases, you're flustered.
So, I tend to get a little flustered if there's a big problem that arises suddenly that
I wasn't expecting. This can definitely catch me off guard, as we say in English. This just
means that something takes you by surprise. So, these things can catch me off guard,
and I don't know what to do, and I'm slow to act. And maybe I just focus on how bad the
problem is, but I don't actually start acting and take the initiative to solve it. So, this is
something that I also want to get better at: problem solving in general.
So, like I said, your technical skills will be involved, depending on what the
problem is. But in general, it's the ability to receive the problem, analyze it, and start to
solve it and to actually do all this. This is a soft skill that some people have, and some
people don't. And of course, employers really love when candidates or their employees
have this skill because in many different industries, there are a lot of unforeseen
problems that arise, and employers want people that are going to be able to deal with
these problems.
Alright, next, let's talk about time management. This is a skill that I've always
valued a lot. I think that it's really important to be able to manage your time well, to
organize your day, and to meet deadlines. In English, when we say that you “meet
deadlines,” this just means that you finish something when you're supposed to finish it
or before the time that you're supposed to finish it. So, meeting deadlines, arriving on
time to different things. This is very important. When people arrive late to different
things, it can leave a bad impression. Other people can view you as not being able to
manage your time well or not being responsible.
Even if this isn't true, this is the type of impression that you can leave if you miss
a deadline or if you're late to something, and so, I think that time management is
something that we should all work on, and it can make us look like a more responsible
person, a better worker, etc. So, time management is crucial when it comes to achieving
your goals as well. Because if you have goals, but you're not able to find time to actually
work on that goal, and you don't know when you're going to achieve it, you have no idea
when you're going to accomplish each step along the way, it’s going to be really hard to
achieve very big goals.
And so, time management will help you go along this process and pass each
step on time, and it will help orient you and help you know what you're supposed to be
doing, what you have already done, what you are falling behind in, all of those different
things. In English, when we say that you “fall behind,” this means that you're not staying
on track, you're not staying at the normal speed, you're going too slow, and so you're
falling behind. And so, time management will help you to stay on track, to do things on
time.
And one thing that I really like about managing my time really well is that I can do
a lot more during my day. So, I'm the type of person that does a lot of different things,
and I like to try to do as many things as I can during my day when I'm awake. I don't like
wasting time. I don't like feeling like I haven't done much during the day. I like to feel like
I've accomplished a lot of different things. And I'm able to do that if I manage my time
well. If I don't manage it well, then of course, I'm not able to do this.
Okay, the last soft skill that we're going to talk about is flexibility. This is another
skill that a lot of employers are looking for. If you're flexible, this means that you can
adapt to different environments, different contexts, different problems that might arise.
You're not only limited to just one thing, or one area, or one type of work, or whatever.
You're able to adapt according to the situation. And so, if you're not flexible, this means
that if something changes, or if someone else needs something from you that's a little
bit different from your normal responsibilities, then you probably won't be able to do this
thing or thrive in this type of situation.
And so, if you're flexible, this means that you're able to deal with unforeseen
things, you're able to, maybe, help other people if they have some issue and they need
you to do something that's a little bit outside of your job description or whatever. You're
going to help other people. You're going to help your manager, probably. You're going to
help yourself because you're going to actually accomplish more, probably. You're going
to be able to do different things and work better in different environments.
And this is going to help you look like a good worker, people are going to like
working with you. They're going to think that you're the type of person that can handle
different situations and handle different problems, and this is just going to help you
overall in your career. So, this is something that I also need to work on a little bit. I'm
somewhat flexible, but I feel like I could definitely improve in this area. I could definitely
be more flexible. So, this is one that I definitely want to work on a little bit and become a
more flexible person in general.
Alright, why don't we stop there for today? I hope this episode was interesting for
you. I hope it got you thinking about these different soft skills and about areas in which
you can improve. I know that I want to improve and have more of these skills. So,
remember that you have the transcript for this episode in the Episode Description. So,
just go down below this episode and click on that if you need it.
And remember that if you want my advanced episodes, if you want practice with
real English at normal speed, then make sure to become a Listening Time Family
Member and you'll get two new advanced episodes every month. And so, in those
episodes, I talk at normal speed, but I provide the transcript so that you can see what
I'm saying, and you can practice with understanding real English, native English, that's
fast. So, make sure to go down and click on the link in the description to sign up to get
my Advanced Podcast. And of course, if you like this podcast, then please give it a five-
star rating, and share it with anyone else who's learning English who might find it useful.
Alright, well, thank you for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next
episode of Listening Time.
*Click on this link to access my Advanced Episodes, Bonus Episodes, and Listening
Practice Seminars: www.patreon.com/listeningtime