If you want to thrive in today’s job market, you need more than technical skills—you also need soft skills.
Soft skills training helps you communicate better, collaborate effectively, and solve problems efficiently. Regardless of your career path or stage, developing these skills is essential.
But how exactly can you do that?
An effective approach is to enroll in one of the best soft skills online courses. These can help significantly boost your career and personal growth. According to new research from Wiley, 63% of respondents report that soft skills training positively impacted their performance.
In this article, we explore some of the best soft skills courses available to help you become a more effective and happier employee.
Key Takeaways
- Soft skills are crucial for thriving in today’s job market; their development is essential for career growth.
- Several online courses offer soft skills training for employees.
- Training in soft skills leads to better communication, improved problem-solving abilities, enhanced teamwork, increased adaptability, and higher job satisfaction.
- Some of the best soft skills training courses to consider include IBM’s People and Soft Skills for Professional and Personal Success Specialization, Cornell University’s Problem-Solving Using Evidence and Critical Thinking, and Rochester Institute’s Essential Soft Skills for the Workplace.
7 Best Soft Skills Courses to Consider in 2024
Here are some of the online courses to help you learn the best soft skills for your resume and boost your career:
Course | Provider | Length | Cost | Certificate of Completion |
People and Soft Skills for Professional and Personal Success Specialization | IBM on Coursera | One month at 10 hours per week | $49 per month after a seven-day free trial | ✅ |
Problem‑Solving Using Evidence and Critical Thinking | Cornell University | Two weeks at 3-5 hours per week | $999 | ➖ |
Essential Soft Skills for the Workplace | Rochester Institute of Technology on edX | Two months at 4-6 hours per week | $537.30 | ✅ |
Excellence in Business and Personal Communication Skills | Udemy | Seven sections, 97 minutes | $49.99 | ✅ |
Active Listening Master Course: How to Improve Communication | New Anthem Learning on Udemy | Six sessions, 93 minutes | $44.99 | ✅ |
Achieving Personal and Professional Success Specialization | University of Pennsylvania on Coursera | One month at 10 hours per week | $49 per month after a seven-day free trial | ✅ |
Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions | University of Michigan on Coursera | Approximately 20 hours to complete (three weeks at six hours a week) | $49 per month after a seven-day free trial | ✅ |
7. Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions
The University of Michigan offers the intermediate-level course Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions on Coursera. It is designed to improve one’s ability to connect with others.
This course provides lectures and practical exercises to help you identify, understand, and manage your emotions effectively.
You will learn to use these skills to enhance interactions with others, and you’ll also develop techniques to boost your empathy and communication skills, which are key ingredients for successful leadership and teamwork.
Upon completion, the course offers a career certificate.
By the end of the course, you will be better equipped to handle life’s emotional ups and downs while building deeper connections with colleagues and others.
6. Achieving Personal and Professional Success Specialization
The Achieving Personal and Professional Success Specialization from the University of Pennsylvania, offered on Coursera, provides valuable tools and techniques to help you succeed both at work and at home.
This series of four online courses will teach you how to discover your passions, collaborate efficiently with others, communicate clearly, and set and achieve important goals.
The specialization offers a certificate upon completion.
Through exercises, self-assessments, quizzes, and case studies, you’ll learn how to define what you want and determine the best way to achieve it.
5. Active Listening Master Course: How to Improve Communication
Created by New Anthem Learning and offered on Udemy, the Active Listening Master Course: How to Improve Communication is designed to make you a more empathetic and focused listener.
This online course provides an interactive learning experience filled with videos, real-life stories, and hands-on activities. It covers everything from casual conversations to professional meetings. You’ll learn practical tips to improve your connections with everyone, from friends and family to coworkers and clients.
The course offers a certificate of completion.
By the end of the course, you’ll feel more confident and comfortable building stronger relationships in every area of your life.
4. Excellence in Business and Personal Communication Skills
Offered on Udemy, the Excellence in Business and Personal Communication Skills course aims to help you express your ideas more clearly and confidently in any situation.
This course includes videos, hands-on exercises, and real-world examples to enhance your communication skills. You’ll learn skills such as active listening, persuasive speaking, and interpreting non-verbal cues, all of which are invaluable during difficult conversations.
The course offers a certificate of completion.
3. Essential Soft Skills for the Workplace
The Rochester Institute of Technology’s Essential Soft Skills for the Workplace program, available on edX, is designed to help you acquire the key skills needed to be more productive at work.
The program’s interactive courses teach you how to resolve conflicts cooperatively, collaborate effectively with others, and improve your communication skills.
Upon completion, the program offers RITx’s Leadership Essentials Professional Certificate.
You’ll sharpen your critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, aiding you in making better decisions and managing projects successfully.
2. Problem‑Solving Using Evidence and Critical Thinking
The online Problem‑Solving Using Evidence And Critical Thinking course offered by Cornell University helps you tackle complex problems by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable parts.
In this course, you’ll learn to think critically, analyze information, and solve problems logically. The curriculum teaches you a step-by-step approach to problem-solving, using real-world data to make better decisions and improve your critical-thinking abilities.
Please note that this course does not offer a certificate.
By the end of the course, you’ll feel more confident in identifying and selecting the right solutions.
1. People and Soft Skills for Professional and Personal Success Specialization
The People and Soft Skills for Professional and Personal Success Specialization from IBM offered on Coursera is a beginner course designed to teach you fundamental social and problem-solving skills.
This online program offers a series of six courses covering a variety of topics, such as effective communication, teamwork, presentation skills, and critical thinking.
By mastering these soft skills, you’ll excel at teamwork, giving presentations, and problem-solving.
The course offers a career certificate from IBM.
If you want to improve your interpersonal skills and boost your career prospects, this may be the program you’re looking for.
Key Benefits of Soft Skills Training
There are a number of benefits to soft skills training, including:
- Better communication: You’ll learn to share your ideas more clearly and listen better, helping you build stronger relationships with colleagues and bosses and deal more effectively with customers.
- Improved problem-solving: This training will help you think critically and find answers to problems more easily.
- Enhanced teamwork: You’ll pick up skills for working better with others.
- Increased adaptability: You’ll become more flexible and better able to adjust to changes or new situations.
- Higher job satisfaction: Improving your soft skills will likely make you feel more confident and satisfied at work.
According to Coursera, essential soft skills that can boost your productivity and help you succeed in any career include public speaking and persuasion, as well as active listening and empathy.
The Bottom Line
While technical skills are important, soft skills can help you stand out in the workplace. Being able to lead, collaborate effectively with colleagues, and handle various situations can significantly improve your job performance.
By improving these areas with the best soft skills courses, you’ll build stronger relationships, feel more confident, and manage challenges more effectively.
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References
- Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions (Coursera)
- Achieving Personal and Professional Success Specialization [4 courses] (Penn) (Coursera)
- Active Listening Master Course: How to Improve Communication (Udemy)
- Excellence in Business and Personal Communication Skills (Udemy)
- Leadership Essentials Professional Certificate (Edx)
- Problem-Solving Using Evidence and Critical Thinking (Ecornell.cornell)
- People and Soft Skills for Professional and Personal Success Specialization [6 courses] (IBM) (Coursera)