Displaying items by tag: soft skills

The financial crisis of the last decade, along with the current COVID-19 pandemic have turned job find to a challenging riddle by constantly creating new obstacles. At the same, the ever increasing qualification of the candidates, generates high competition that demands, especially from the youth, constant alert and update: The best ally of young people amidst this situation, is not other than the development of their soft skills.

Soft vs Hard Skills

At this point, we should clarify the difference between “hard” and “soft” skills.

• Hard skills derive from highly specialised knowledge which is acquired through academic courses. Such skills may include medical and legal practices, mechanics, informatics, architecture and practically anything that requires a degree. Therefore, a person with no official certification on such skill, is automatically put out of competition in comparison to those who do.

• Soft skills on the other hand refer to inherent human capabilities which are whether inherited or developed through practice, instead of being acquired in an academic setting. Such skills may include communication, problem solving, teamwork, negotiation, decision making etc. For these skills, no official certification is required and practically everyone can “get into the game” and develop them.

The main goal of the VTeCOACH project is to develop an assessment tool based on a 360º evaluation system so that VET learners can later be provided with the necessary feedback to carry out an action plan in order to work on and hopefully improve their SOFT skills.