Types of Skills
- Hard Skills/ Technical Skills- are any skills relating to a specific task or situation. It involves both understanding and proficiency in such specific activity that involves methods, processes, procedures, or techniques. These are also skills that can be or have been tested and may entail some professional, technical, or academic qualification. These can be achieved by taking education/diploma/courses in the desired technical field. For example, if we want to work in an IT firm as a specialist, a course regarding the same field must be required.
- Generic Skills- such as critical thinking, problem-solving skills, positive values, and attitudes (e.g. resilience, appreciation for others) which are essential for life-long learning and personality development. These are not something that can be read in textual form. They could be acquired by practicing them and developing them over time. Also, reading good self-help books from experienced writers may help.
- Labor Skills- These are nothing but the ability of a person to work in an efficient manner. They can neither be read nor be acquired through education. They could only be practiced or followed on a regular basis when a person is employed somewhere.
- Life Skills- An ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills). These are developed over the years and through good educational background. Anyone who is of sound mind could possess great life skills.
- People Skills- these include: understanding ourselves and moderating our responses (these are the type of skills which no one other than ourselves could teach us. They can be acquired through self-awareness, meditation, yoga, reading, etc.); talking effectively and empathizing accurately (knowing what to speak when, what to do when someone needs help, how to present oneself) and building relationships of trust, respect and productive interactions (these can be both friendly and work relationships and they need ample amount of time to be built)
- Soft Skills- they are a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes and emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) among others.
Thus I’ve included ever type of skill in my list and hope it would be helpful. Some of these skills could be acquired through education while others through experience and awareness.