Communication Skills

One of the many Employability Skills. Communicating with others, whether customers or work colleagues, is essential for the smooth running of an organisation. If you can’t communicate properly then it will be very difficult for anyone to understand you. Knowing your target audience will allow you to be able to amend your message appropriately; there is little point using technical academic language when you want to communicate a simple concept to the general public who have been identified as your customers.

For a job situation, employers will usually form a strong opinion of your spoken and written communication skills in your application form as well as the dialogue you strike up during an interview (assuming you manage to get that far).

Spoken communication will not just be face-to-face, but will also include telephone, as well as networked communication such as Skype, Teams, FaceTime and virtual conference meetings.

To communicate opinions, ideas and information to others there is a need to speak clearly to ensure the person receiving your message does not need to ask you to repeat it due to a lack of clarify in how you say it.

Listening is a key communication skill; you will need to be able to listen carefully to others so that you can understand what their requirements are or what information is that they are passing on to you.

In addition to being able to speak clearly you may also need to be able to confirm that you have understood what a customer is asking or enquiring about. This is an important skill to have, as a poorly communicated confirmation of what you think a customer is requiring (essentially you have misunderstood) can put a customer off and lose business.

Written communication can be through letters, reports, leaflets for marketing purposes, e-mail, tweets, company website updates or company Facebook updates. The presentation of numbers in a graphical form helps to identify the main points that you want to convey from the mass of data, which are encountered within a business environment. Being able to identify trends and focussing on the ‘main picture’ rather than getting bogged down in a mass of unintelligible data is a useful skill that is sought after by employers.

Getting your message across in a clear and concise way requires a good grasp of grammar and punctuation. One exception to this is if written communication is by the use of mobile phone text messaging / web app text messaging: KWIM, CYL (Know What I Mean, See You Later). Netlingo is a good site to check.

Organisations will often have a house style which means that outgoing written communication will be presented within a certain format, font and style.

Sign language may also be a desirable communication requirement in some organisations. It is important to know who the target audience are to be to enable you to make your communication effective. British Deaf Association - British Sign Language

Communicating in other languages is a skill that can significantly add value to your employability prospects, especially if the organisations you want to work for are involved in transactions or dealings outside of the UK.