There is specialized training and then there are soft skills. Abilities that transcend industry and play an important role in any work you intend to do. These abilities are often thought to be unteachable. The reality? With hard work and repetition, you can develop a healthy set of skills that will make it easier to pivot into new industries and be competitive for the next promotion you go out for.

In this article, we take a look at key skills that help with industry switches. We also examine ways you can build these skills naturally over time.

What is a Soft Skill?

Soft skills are abilities that often describe how well you work with others. Communication, time management, disposition. In some careers, they are necessary. For example, in healthcare, you need doctors and nurses who can effectively prioritize tasks and communicate difficult concepts in a way that is relatively easy for the general public to understand.

Even in jobs where they are not strictly necessary, they are almost always beneficial. You want to leave an interview with the hiring manager thinking, “Oh yeah. I want to work with them.” That doesn’t happen when you get there fifteen minutes late and stumble awkwardly through the interview.

In the next section, we look at what skills are most beneficial to your job hunt and how you can develop them to your advantage.

Communication

Communication is arguably the trickiest soft skill to develop. Some are just born with a natural knack for dealing with others. Those who don’t come by that ability natively often struggle to acquire it at all.

You can become a better communicator by practicing active listening. Active listening is basically mindfulness for conversational purposes. While active listening, you do not think about what you want to say, or what you are going to have for dinner. You pay attention to the other person. Their words. Their physical cues.

Also, consider getting out of your comfort zone. Try having more conversations with people you don’t know. This doesn’t mean approaching strangers at the grocery store. It might mean trading a few extra comments with neighbors or other parents in the school pickup lines. Low-stakes social encounters that will help you feel more comfortable dealing with other people in a professional context.

Time Management

Time management begins with getting places on time. Obviously, if you are going to be professionally successful, you also need to be reliable. However, effective time management is about more than just not missing your shift. It’s also about task prioritization.

What’s the most effective thing you could be doing with your time right now? To improve your task management, think actively about efficiency throughout the day. How could you be using your time more effectively? Saving just ten hours a day could boost your productivity by up to 50 hours a year. That’s the sort of thing employers will begin to notice over time.

Collaboration

Collaboration is an important part of any professional dynamic. This is particularly true if you are going out for a promotion. You need to demonstrate leadership potential. Leadership potential consists of several qualities working in tandem. Task prioritization and communication, sure. Also, conflict management. How do you handle tension with colleagues?

Emotional intelligence. How well do you understand where another person is coming from on a more subconscious level?

You’ll be working with other people in almost any job. How well you do it may shape your future earning potential and your overall workplace experience.

Thinking Beyond Soft Skills

Soft skills are great once you get on the job, but they are hard to put on a resume. If you want to boost your credentials, look into low-hanging certifications. While graduate school can open doors, it’s not always necessary. Skill boot camps can accomplish much of the same thing if you are interested in pivoting into a career path that is like, but not identical to, your current job.

For example, maybe you want to move into a more analytical role within your current company. In that case, you might consider going to a specialized skill boot camp that will allow you to get certified in a matter of months.

You can also get certified in a wide range of programming languages and other technical skills. These programs are not necessarily easy, but they are easier than graduate programs, and they are available at a fraction of the cost.

Figure out what skills will have the most value to you. Don’t be afraid to moneyball the situation. Advanced degrees are awesome but if you can do more with less it’s just as well, right?

That said, there are some positions that will require additional certification. You might decide that this is a good direction to take your career. The work is prestigious and high-paying, and there are always new developments. For example, you may be attracted by the advent of space law—a recent legal discipline that is shaping the way nations will outer space.

If you want to be a lawyer, you will need to go through law school. If you want to be a nurse, you will need to become licensed.

Some qualifications—law school—will require full enrollment in a graduate-level program. Nursing school, on the other hand, may leave you with a wider range of options.

If you have a college education already, you will be eligible for both accelerated degrees and certification-only programs that will significanly decrease the amount of time you will need to spend getting your nursing credential.

There are lots of programs like this. No job is inaccessible simply because of an education barrier.