Hello, I am in the process of writing a new cover letter for an entry-level editing position. While it’s easy to articulate my technical skills, I am having greater difficulty explaining personable traits, soft skills or professional skills.
What are the professional skills that are highly valued in the web development field?
Here’s a second issue: If you are interested in applying for an editing job and you have limited skills, then how would you explain in your letter that you can quickly learn or adapt to the requirements of the job?
Things like leadership and teamwork are the generic good ones for just about anything.
Talking about design skills could be consider “soft” skills for a web designer, depending how you’re approaching them. (If you consider technical skills stuff like CSS, HTML, etc., then design knowledge could be a soft skill).
Experience in software design, project management, etc. are all also good skills.
To be honest, I didn’t write any soft skills in my cover letter. Just wrote how I basically love doing Web Developer and how I’ll contribute to the company. Soft skills comes into play during the interview. Just smiling a lot, ask smart questions, and really understand what they are saying. As an entry level position, you really need to emphasize that you’re eager to learn to get the job done. Maybe mentioning you’re good at “self-taught”. Many companies doesn’t have someone to mentor you. Probably, your GPA would be your best weapon to get the interviews.
Teamwork and communication are very important (and often lacking in many freelancers). What you need in your cover letter however can vary greatly depending on the company you are applying to. Some look more for a willingness to learn, some want proven experience, etc. I would look at the culture of the company you are applying to and write your cover letter accordingly (yes, this means you should send a different cover letter to each company).
Clear communication - being able to communicate both internal and client side is a must. Also, other key points:
Planning and workload management
Troubleshooting
Ability to think creatively
Team work
Knowledge sharing
There’s a few to get on with. Try to back these skills with proven examples where possible. It helps strengthen the cover letter / application / resume
Agreed…it’s often better to focus on the technical capabilities as opposed to soft skills (it’s hard to measure soft skills until the interview is made).
You have asked about soft skills required in a web developer : Soft skills is something associated with your optimistic thinking, behavior, Communication skills, creativity, problem solving capacity, team work etc. These information are usually not given in resume, A recruiter judges at the time of interview.
If you are applying for a web developer then you should have good communication skill though it is not needed but expected.In some situations you might be asked to interact with clients then it would help you.