In our previous blog post, we posed the question of which is more valuable in terms of hiring—hard skills or soft skills? The bottom line is that hiring for soft skills is extremely important in the employment marketplace, which is why job seekers should make sure they possess all the skills necessary to be considered a top candidate.

When you have all of the requisite hard skills (or technical skills), possessing soft skills can give you a competitive advantage over other candidates. And when you get to the end of the hiring process, when hiring managers are making their final decision, every little edge helps.

With that in mind, below are the top work habits of valuable employees:

#1—Patience

Patience is both a virtue and a valuable soft skill. That’s because patient people take the time to analyze a situation and they rarely overreact or react poorly. Yes, being proactive is a good thing. However, being reckless is not. Employers are looking for those who are both patient and decisive.

#2—Active listening

This has become an increasingly rare skill in the marketplace. Active listening is not just waiting for the other person to stop speaking so that you can finally talk. It’s about actually hearing what the other person is saying, considering their viewpoint, and contemplating how they’re thinking and feeling about the situation.

#3—Emotional intelligence

This is also a rare skill and one that employers have increasingly sought out during the past few years. In a nutshell, this is the ability to identify and manage not only your own emotions, but also the emotions of those around you. It might not surprise you to know that active listening is an integral component of emotional intelligence.

#4—Prioritization

There’s a difference between working hard and working hard on the right things. Companies value those employees who know the difference between the two and can identify what is most important to the organization in terms of productivity and profit. Focus is a critical component of proper prioritization.

#5—Balance

Yes, employers should strive to make balance a part of the company culture and even part of the organization’s core values. However, they also want to hire people who already know how to achieve balance in their personal and professional lives. They would rather not hire people who burn themselves out with regularity, causing their work and their productivity to suffer.

How many of these work habits do you possess? How many are areas of concern? These are the top work habits of valuable employees.

The Doepker Group has experience placing professionals in the Information Technology and Engineering fields, and we can place you, as well.

We invite you to search through our open positions. You can start the process by creating a profile and submitting your resume.