The soft skills you'll need to learn before you get promoted ?? (Part 1)

So you’ve been in your current role for over a year now, and you’re looking to get promoted. You know you’ve got the technical skills down pat. Maybe your line manager has even told you that you’re on the way to becoming a team lead.

Awesome!

But you’re probably wondering: what else should you do before requesting a promotion? How can you ? shine ? before the next performance review?

You could always ask for additional projects, or show interest in learning the stuff that’ll be useful as you climb up the corporate ladder.

Another great way to gear up is to work on your soft skills.

In this two-part article, I’ll walk you through what soft skills are, why they matter, and how you can develop them in time for the next step in your career.

What are soft skills, and why are they important?

Soft skills are the complement to “hard skills” or the technical know-how you need to get around at work. But just because they’re “soft” doesn’t mean they’re less valuable.

Soft skills are also known as emotional intelligence or people skills . These are crucial when it comes to working with colleagues, bosses, clients, and other external stakeholders. They’re integral to great interactions, successful pitches and negotiations, and career/business growth.

Your emotional intelligence also shows current or future employers that you’re a team player and a good leader. It indicates interest in personal growth, confidence, integrity, and longevity within the company .

In the Filipino job market context, soft skills are crucial. A 2024 study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) showed that there is a lot of room for Filipino employees to grow in terms of soft skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability. This is especially true in a work environment that continues to evolve and become more digital.

The Soft Skills Round-up (Part 1)

If you’re interested in learning what soft skills to develop and how you can harness them, here are my top 4 picks to get you started. These will help you whether you’re a copywriter like me, or you’re simply game to keep growing in your career.

(BTW, check back next week for Part 2!)

1. Attention to Detail

Remember when you first took on the role you’re in now, and your boss or client shared with you the mandatories of a particular project? For copywriters like myself, these can include tone of voice and target market.

How about the quirks you picked up along the way, like words clients don’t like to use, emojis they avoid, maybe even a turn of phrase your boss isn’t a fan of.

Here are three tips to improve your attention to detail (specific to advertising creatives, but you can adapt these to your field):

• Review artworks, videos, and any script or caption 3x. Review it first for the overall impression, then for typos, then do a final check for copy-visual lock (if they complement each other and aren’t redundant). This is especially important before a material goes to print or goes live on social.
• Review the brief or job order. Make sure everything is on-strat, on-brand, and answers the objectives.
• Keep a running file of best practices for a brand. I like to make a checklist of reminders, comments, and watch-outs on OneNote or the Notes app. Then, before I submit anything to my team lead, I review my work vis a vis the checklist. That way, I avoid repeating mistakes and show my boss and our clients that we’re paying attention!

2. Research and Critical Thinking

Research has always been part of what I do as a copywriter, back when I was in a small agency without a strat team, and even now as I collab with brand strategists. Here are some tips I learned along the way:

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