For most candidates, a top priority is to progress with exams, so a lot of planning and thought goes into mapping out exam progression over multiple years. Many candidates plan out every four to six months of the year via detailed study plans and schedules for each available exam sitting. Those plans help students stay on track and, when followed, increase their chances of passing these exams. 

The same level of rigor is not usually applied to developing additional skills, especially soft skills, even though those are also key for a successful career progression. In this article, I explore some of the soft skills that proved most crucial throughout my career so far and provide examples on ways to improve them.  After reading this article, the first step you should take if you want to improve any of these skills is to do an honest self-evaluation and figure out what are the areas where you might need improvement. 

Communication skills — This is likely the most obvious one, and it is listed first given how crucial it is. Improving your communication skills early on can help set you apart from other internship applicants and expedite securing a full-time offer or promotion. When doing a self-evaluation for this, you should examine both your oral and written communication skills. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from your supervisor and your colleagues. Here are some key areas to focus on when improving your communication skills: 

• Learn how to write efficient and concise emails. They should showcase your expertise and provide all necessary details but shouldn’t overwhelm your recipients. If ever you feel your email is too long for your audience to understand the topic, I encourage you to reevaluate if email is the right type of communication. Would a meeting and quick presentation better convey the message?  
• Learn how to give engaging and persuasive presentations. In our line of work, we often present an analysis to senior leadership or other stakeholders, and we need to convince them to accept our proposal. It is important not to place the focus on trying to present the entire analysis you did and instead think about what they are looking for. Make sure your message is tailored to your audience and keep it to just the key details needed for decision making.  
• Learn how to organize and lead effective meetings. Make sure you always include an agenda when sending out meeting invites, only invite the key people you need, and, if your attendee list is large, think about splitting the meeting into several meetings to keep discussions efficient. Also, plan how to keep meetings on track — have a plan to step in if a conversation goes off topic or if the group is spending too much time on something.  

Time management and project planning — This is another crucial soft skill to learn as early as possible. Likely, your university years already started preparing your time management skills but entering a high pace corporate environment while also balancing study time may be even more challenging. There will be routine projects that you can plan for in detail, but there will also be a multitude of ad hoc requests such as someone asking for help or insights, or unexpected analyses, popping up here and there. You will need to learn how to prioritize work — either on your own or with the help of your supervisor or more experienced colleagues. When working on a task, you need to think about how impactful that work will be and determine how much time you should be spending on it accordingly. Your focus and priority should always be on the most impactful projects. I would also encourage you to find an effective system for organizing your notes, so you can easily reference the information in the future. 

Collaboration and networking — Focusing on these two items can help you learn new things faster and speed up your career development. I encourage you to collaborate effectively within your team but also don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and collaborate with people outside your department. Always appreciate diversity of thought and keep an open mind for new ideas; you can learn so much from them. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas either, as that gives others the opportunity to learn from you. After collaborating with others, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback or to provide feedback to others. You can all grow and develop your skills if you embrace a constant growth and improvement mentality. Finally, I encourage you to grow your network both within as well as outside your company. Having a solid network will help you succeed and achieve greater things throughout your career.  The actuarial world is small — you will be surprised how often you run into people you know. 

Ways to improve these skills — Like I mentioned earlier, first evaluate where you currently are on these skills.  Then each year, create a development plan that, in addition to exams and technical skills, includes the soft skills you want to develop further. Make sure to discuss these plans regularly with your supervisor and see if you both agree on which ones you should focus. Your supervisor can then consider your projects and task assignments with these development items in mind. They may also tell you if there are formal training opportunities at your company for any of the skills you would like to develop. If there aren’t, there are some high-quality training courses available at LinkedIn Learning or through online course providers such as Coursera. In addition to formal trainings, I would also encourage you to find peers who are strong in the skills you are looking to develop and ask them to coach you or give you feedback. Don’t forget that no matter which skill you are trying to improve, practice is key, so try to practice each as much as possible. 

Editor’s Note: For more ways to improve your soft skills and other business skills, see CAS President Frank Chang’s column in the September/October issue of Actuarial Review.