For a US assignment we were supposed to shortlist, some management graduates with domain expertise in Finance. While going through the list of requirements, one aspect caught my mind. The candidate was required to have excellent communication skills. Now normally this is a part of most requirements but in this case this point was the first one and was in bold.

In the evening while the review call with the client I brought up this issue, and he was clear in his requirement, only candidates with good communication skills need be short listed. Now we have short listed four candidates for the position. Two of them were excellent choices with more than a decade of experience in the domain; the third had the most experience on that system. The fourth candidate was a lady, who just about made the cut on the technical requirements but she had excellent communication skills. I scheduled the interviews and to my surprise the client selected the lady for the prestigious US assignment. Till this incident I always felt that communication skill was a qualifier, but suddenly in this case it had turned into a differentiator. Not only did the lady travel on-site but she also won appreciation from the client on various occasions.

It is very difficult for anyone to judge the competency of an individual in an interview. But what makes it even more difficult is if the candidate is not able to communicate to the interviewer his qualities or accomplishments. Yes to an extent the resume helps but the impact that a live interview makes on the assessor is far greater.

Now communication mostly means written and oral communication, but unknown to most 70% of our communication is non-verbal. Body language, hand gestures, facial expressions, seating positions etc are the most important messages we are giving out while being assessed whether at work or in private life. I remember an incident when my cousin refused to marry a certain gentleman as he was unable to maintain eye contact when he met her the first time.

Recently I was in the process of staffing a key life sciences account. During the interviews I noticed this employee who had an excellent CV, but she was constantly rubbing her hands. This for me was a sign of nervousness. This was a definite disaster as far as this project was concerned.

We spend most of our lives acquiring technical, domain skills but we hardly give any attention to communication skills. But how does one go about it?

I came up with a list of few things I have done over the years to improve my communication skills.

Practice speaking daily, it not necessarily be relevant to business or work but can be anything. Your opinion on a movie or a match would suffice. A short speech of 5-7 minutes is good enough. Join a communication club, like Toastmasters International; they not only help you with verbal communication, but the course is designed to develop every aspect of communication like body language, vocal variety.

Try to observe good speakers like politicians, news readers even some of the Bollywood and Hollywood actors and try to incorporate their style in your communication style. Even observing people in your work place or peer group can some times improve your performance to the next level.

Observe your own performance, the best way to do it is to record your speech preferable video using a handy cam or A mobile phone with a video recorder. This would help you to track the mistakes you are making while communicating.

Lastly keep reading, updating your self with knowledge about your domain and the current happenings as this would indeed increase your performance.

Improving your communication is like ‘Kaisen’. Try to aim for constant marginal improvement, keep milestones and reward your self for every small improvement.

Best of Luck!

( The author is a soft skill trainer at CSC-India and he is a Competent Toastmaster)