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From Grad School to Career: Soft Skills That Shape Success

Updated: Dec 21, 2025

Much of the discussion around graduate school education focuses on career preparation in relation to subject matter expertise, technical skills, and analytical training. What often gets overlooked is the chance for personal growth through soft skills like communication, adaptability, resilience, teamwork, leadership, and empathy. The generative contexts of research and exploration in graduate school provide a rich environment for building these abilities, which will not only help you succeed in graduate programs, but carry forward into careers across academia, industry, government, or non‑profits.


In this article, mentor Renee, MLIS, shares her perspective on how soft skills shape your graduate school journey, and why they matter long after the degree itself. She’s one of many mentors at Another Degree who understand that grad school admissions and success aren’t just about insider knowledge or strategy (though they have that too), but about the inner strengths you cultivate and demonstrate along the way. n


As a current or prospective graduate student, you may have heard the term “soft skills” before. This term often comes up in discussions of higher education and career planning, with people nodding and agreeing to the importance and value of soft skills in the workplace. However, these discussions often leave unspoken questions. What does the term soft skills actually refer to? Why are soft skills important? Are soft skills more important in the age of AI? Which soft skills are the best to develop? And how does all of this relate to grad school?


I remember feeling overwhelmed by similar questions and being grateful that I had mentors to walk me through the process of answering them. I hope to be that mentor for you, and I am excited to explore these questions (and more) with you to help you gain a better understanding of how soft skills can serve you in your graduate career and beyond.


Soft Skills vs Hard Skills

Let’s start by defining our terms. There are two primary types of skills that people refer to when talking about skills development. These are hard skills and soft skills.


To summarize the Oxford Dictionary of Human Resource Management, hard skills (also known as technical skills) are specific job-related technical abilities such as operating a machine, creating a spreadsheet, speaking a foreign language, computer programming, etc. that are typically relatively easy to measure and can be validated with a credential. Soft skills (also known as people skills) on the other hand, are competencies associated with activities such as customer handling, communication, problem solving and teamworking. Soft skills can include resilience, empathy, critical thinking, leadership, emotional intelligence, problem-solving and more.


Both types of skills are valuable but serve different functions in the workplace. We can think of hard skills as competencies pertaining to the technology, specializations, and systems required for a specific position, while soft skills are competencies critical to creating a collaborative and effective workplace.


Soft Skills and AI

With the rise of generative AI, soft skills have been hailed as more important than ever. Prominent organizations such as Forbes espouse that soft skills are growing increasingly more vital as AI becomes better and better at technical tasks.


I agree in one sense, as soft skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving will help employees adapt to the changing work landscape ushered in by further developments of AI. However, I do not necessarily think soft skills are more needed in the age of AI, as this implies that the value of soft skills increased due to technology advancing.

Colorful image of a scholar climbing a ladder represented by hard skills, but lifted by clouds represented by soft skills. Generated using google gemini.
Generated by prompt using Google Gemini (2025): image in the style of Paul Klee of a scholar climbing a ladder represented by hard skills, but lifted by clouds represented by soft skills.

Rather, I believe the rise of AI serves as a clear reminder that soft skills always have been, and always will be, indispensable.


If a catastrophic event occurred where we lost access to cell phones, computers, and other forms of technology, I believe we would see the same need for adaptability and creative problem-solving in the workforce. Thus, we can see that the value of soft skills does not lie specifically in technological advancements (or regressions), but rather the fact that soft skills equip you to work with people, acclimate to changing landscapes, and future-proof your value as an employee in a variety of circumstances.


Soft Skills and Graduate Studies

Soft skills are usually mentioned in conjunction with internships or a career, however soft skills are also relevant to graduate school. The stereotype of the solo researcher is becoming less common, however there is still a belief that graduate school is primarily a solo endeavor where you work alone the majority of the time. While there is independent work, graduate school is also filled with collaborative work whether you are working with faculty, classmates and peers, or mentors.


Given this, soft skills can primarily come into play in graduate school in two ways. In grad school you can both continue developing soft skills that you already have and also use your grad school experience as a way to gain new soft skills.


To frame our conversation, let’s focus on the soft skills identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which they are terming as career readiness competencies. NACE has identified eight career readiness competencies that include the following: career and self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology.


These competencies are not an exhaustive list of soft skills but will be helpful for us to keep in mind as we consider how graduate school and soft skills relate to each other. I especially like this framework as it has sample behaviors attached to it, which will help you in determining whether you have mastered the skill.


Further Develop Soft Skills in Grad School

Let’s explore our first scenario where graduate school allows you to continue developing your skills.

Coming into graduate school you may already have soft skills that you have acquired throughout life, past careers, or during your undergraduate studies. One way you can discover if you already have these skills is to look at your past experiences and see if they align with any of the sample behaviors mentioned in the career readiness competencies website.


For example, if you have led a team at work where you had to plan, manage or complete projects, you have already begun to develop your leadership abilities. You can apply for leadership positions of student associations or organizations to continue developing your skill.


As another example, if during the pandemic you learned new technology to stay in contact with friends and family remotely, you have already begun to develop your technology soft skill. You can further practice technology by intentionally seeking to learn new software that will help you manage your research and complete assignments.


Similar to hard skills, soft skills need to be continually used and practiced for you to remain adept at them. Practicing them in graduate school is an excellent way to both become more comfortable with them and streamline your graduate school experience. I personally had already begun to develop my soft skills before graduate school, yet I still found there were several instances where I had the opportunity to use and develop them throughout my program.


Gain New Soft Skills in Grad School

In our second scenario, perhaps you have not had many opportunities to grow your soft skills and can use your time in graduate school to acquire them.


In this case, it can be helpful to hone in on which soft skills to focus on gaining. NACE studies show that the top three soft skills employers are looking for are communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. If you already have these skills, you can focus on the others on the NACE list or beyond. However, if you do not think that you have had a chance to develop your communication, teamwork and critical thinking abilities, these three would be an excellent place to start.


You can employ similar methods as the ones stated above to gain these skills, such as working on communication techniques with your classmates and faculty, applying for leadership or member positions in student organizations, seeking out internship opportunities, and taking classes that emphasize critical thinking and analysis. However, opportunities to gain these skills may also organically arise throughout your program.


A study done by Another Degree Founder Dr. Kelly in 2023 surveyed the career pathways and personal and professional development of alumni of the humanities, arts, and social science undergraduate research programs offered by UCLA’s undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Over 70% of survey respondents reported gaining soft skills through the experience, although the experience was not explicitly designed to teach soft skills (Kistner et al.).


Graduate school usually has a higher focus on research and complex projects than undergraduate studies, providing built-in opportunities to obtain and grow soft skills even if you do not intentionally seek them out.


Reflection on Soft Skills

At this point we have explored some of the main questions about how graduate school and soft skills relate to each other. I hope you are feeling more confident in your ability to either continue developing your skills or gain new skills as you move further into your education.


However, I realize that even with knowledge on what soft skills are and how to develop them, it can still be difficult to know where to start. If you feel anxious thinking about internships, classes, and leadership positions on top of your everyday life, you are not alone. I worked full-time while in grad school and recall those feelings of overwhelm.


After reflecting on mentors whose soft skills I admire and my own personal growth, I believe there are three qualities that underlie most soft skills that you can nurture in yourself to help you develop your skills. These three qualities are curiosity, kindness, and humility.


With curiosity, kindness, and humility underlying your interactions with yourself and others, you are well equipped to begin your journey to develop your soft skills whether you practice them in your everyday interactions or extracurriculars.


In this video, Renee expands on the qualities that underly soft skills: curiosity, humility, and kindness (including self-kindness), and how they work together to strengthen soft skills for academic and career success.

Get In Touch

If you are someone who prefers to chat about topics rather than read about them, I am happy to talk about identifying which soft skills you may already have, exploring opportunities to develop and acquire soft skills, examining how curiosity, kindness, and humility can support your soft skills development, or anything else that may help you on your journey. In many ways soft skills are life skills, and I would love to help you develop them further. Let’s do this together.

Thanks, Renee

Is Renee the right mentor for your academic or professional journey? Request to book below!




References

Bartoli, D. (2025, July 15). Soft skills: The most critical skills to teach in the age of ai. Forbes.


Heery, E., & Noon, M. hard skills. In A Dictionary of Human Resource Management. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 Nov. 2025,


Gray, K. (2025, January 13). The gap in perceptions of new grads’ competency proficiency and resources to shrink it.

National Association of Colleges and Employers. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/the-gap-in-


Heery, E., & Noon, M. soft skills. In A Dictionary of Human Resource Management. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 Nov. 2025,


Kistner, K., Toven-Lindsey, B., Sparck, E.M., Ardam, J., Reizman, L., Levis-Fitzgerald, M., & Arnold, W. Undergraduate Research in the

Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences: Alumni Personal and Professional Outcomes. (Manuscript under review). Presented as a

poster at the 2023 General Education, Pedagogy, and Assessment Conference of the American Association of Colleges and

Universities, New Orleans, LA.


National Association of Colleges and Employers. (n.d.). What is Career Readiness?. NACE. https://www.naceweb.org/career-

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