Soft skills matter in hiring. LinkedIn’s 2019 Global Talent Trends report found that 92 percent of talent professionals said soft skills matter as much as or more than hard skills. Communication, teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving come up again and again in interviews.
Build those skills through internships, part-time work, volunteering, and class projects. Practical experience gives you real examples to talk about, which is what interviewers remember.
Career services offices can help with resumes, mock interviews, and employer contacts. Use them before you graduate, not after. Our guides to landing your first job: acing the interview and best interview preparation strategies cover interview preparation in detail.
Networking counts, but the original claim that a specific share of jobs comes through networking was unsourced and has been removed. Build relationships anyway: talk to alumni, attend industry events, and keep a simple professional profile online. leveraging case studies from your master’s in job interviews and using LinkedIn effectively for post-master’s job searches have more on using your degree and your profile in the job hunt.
The original article also framed its advice around a specific advocacy report that could not be confirmed. The advice stands on its own without that framing, so it has been removed.
