You have the technical knowledge, you have developed your skills and you have a lot of experience. Every IT professional will eventually realize that technical skills are only a part of the solution. Although you may be able to get in the door (or into the IT cave), it is important to develop soft skills that will allow you to stand out and advance your career. For example, effective communication skills for IT professionals are crucial.
Why bother with skills?
Even if you work in a technical position, there will always be a time or many when you need to communicate your technical interests and knowledge with others. IT departments are less isolated these days and it’s not possible to avoid non-IT coworkers.
Promotions and Advancement
Executives, HR and hiring managers all agree on the importance soft skills for business growth. Anyone who wants to progress in their career, especially as a leader or manager, must be able to communicate with people from all walks of the organization. You should split your time between your technical and soft skills development if you want to grow your career.
Marketability and job security
You want to improve your career, so it’s a good idea to continue or start developing your soft skills as an employee. Even if you don’t want to move up, it’s important that you keep in mind the changing job market. Even if you’re not currently looking for work, it’s possible that you will find yourself in this situation in the future. Executives say it’s hard to find professionals with essential soft skills. This is why it’s important to develop and demonstrate your communication skills to stand out from your peers.
Six Tips and Tricks for Effective Communication for IT Professionals
You will interact with professionals outside of IT, business people, salespeople, and others in the cybersecurity audit. Your interpersonal communication skills will make a big difference in your success or failure. It’s okay if you find some of these situations daunting at first.
These are some important things to remember as you begin to look for new opportunities to get out of your comfort zone in communication.
Don’t make assumptions about the knowledge of the other party.
Don’t assume that the other person is as knowledgeable as you are. Don’t assume superiority. Instead, show empathy and ask the other person if they are familiar with the topic you’d like. To get a sense for their knowledge, you can ask them “Have I already received some background information?” or “Stop if you explain something you already understand.”
Do adapt your message to suit your audience.
You can adapt the conversation to the level of understanding that the other person has based on their familiarity with the technology. You will need a different approach to communicating with IT professionals than you would with people outside your department.
DO NOT squander your attention on the complexities.
IT coworkers will be able to understand the complexities that you face every day and appreciate the details. Others in your company may prefer to see the information in simpler terms, but not always. Instead of listing every step in the troubleshooting process you used to solve a problem or explaining why it worked, discuss your final solution and why it is working moving forward.
Include what the business is passionate about