Professional Development: 5 Essential Tips for Improving Your Verbal Skills

Verbal skills are one of the most in-demand soft skills in a wide variety of careers. Moving forward on your career path or starting over in a new field become easier when your communication abilities stand out from your peers.

Here are five ways to improve your verbal skills for improved job opportunities:

Do more reading.

Reading exposes you to different ways of communicating effectively. While reading in your field can add an extra boost to your career options, any type of reading will increase verbal skills. Try apps like Mix for access to articles in topics you select.

Practice listening.

Listening helps you understand others. It gives you more information about a situation or idea, so you can make more effective contributions to the conversation. It also builds relationships between you and the person you’re listening to. Many management courses encourage managers to build strong listening skills but demonstrating these skills at any point in your career can indicate that you’d thrive in a promotion.

Think before you speak.

Whenever possible, think ahead of time about what you would like to say. Doing so can help you express your ideas more clearly. It can also help you focus on the issue and the solution, which can improve your chances of staying clear-headed in a tense or difficult situation – another sign of a potential leader.

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes.

What do they know? What do they need to know? What do they want or need from the conversation? When you understand where your audience is coming from, it’s easier to communicate with them more effectively.

Pay attention to nonverbal communication, too.

While verbal skills focus on the ways we speak and use words, nonverbal communication makes up a significant portion of what we “say.” Pay attention to your own body language, tone and gestures and to those used by others to learn more about what is – and is not – being said.

At THE RIGHT STAFF, LLC, our recruiters specialize in connecting Minneapolis and Edina area job seekers with the best job opportunities and employers available. Contact us today to learn more.

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