Soft Skills Are a Scam

Reminder to self:

Soft skills are only valuable if you can prove them.

And you can use this to your advantage to stand out in interviews and job searches in 3 ways:

1. Turn traits into proof points.

Instead of saying “I’m a great communicator,” I’ll point to a moment I convinced a skeptical team to adopt my idea and the impact that decision had.

2. Use outcomes, not adjectives.

This leads to:

• Turning “I’m adaptable” into “I taught myself how to use our new CRM in two days—so I didn’t miss a single client follow-up, and my close rate stayed at 40%.”

• Turning “I’m empathetic” into “I mediated a team conflict and helped reset expectations to meet deadlines.”

• Turning “I’m coachable” into “I implemented feedback in real-time and improved customer satisfaction scores within a month.”

People don’t hire adjectives. They hire results.

3. Frame soft skills through action.

Here’s how this works:

Worst case, you come across as thoughtful, self-aware, and someone who reflects on impact.

Best case, you position yourself as someone who already thinks like a high-performer.

Either way, you stop sounding like a resume and start sounding like a hire.

So, if you want to stop blending in and start becoming the obvious choice, do this:

1. Write down 3 soft skills you claim to have.

   
   

2. Dig up the receipts — moments where those skills changed the outcome.
   

3. Boil each one down to a sentence with action + impact.
   

4. Practice telling the story like you're pitching yourself, not just describing yourself.
   

5. Stop trying to sound impressive. Start trying to sound true.

The truth sticks.

Nobody remembers the polished pitch.

They remember the one that made them feel something.