{"id":63306,"date":"2014-03-05T11:30:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T16:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63306"},"modified":"2014-03-05T13:50:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T18:50:53","slug":"de-bunking-interpersonal-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63306","title":{"rendered":"De-Bunking Interpersonal Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samantha Read<\/em>, Head Editor, INALJ New Brunswick<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

De-Bunking Interpersonal Skills<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"2013Upload<\/a>You\u2019ll see the phrase \u201cinterpersonal skills\u201d on most job ads these days. Good interpersonal skills are\u00a0essential for any position in any organization. What exactly constitutes being interpersonal, though?\u00a0When it all boils down to it, what does it really take to confidently claim that yes, indeed, I am good at\u00a0being interpersonal?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite simple to state that you have good people skills on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 or cover letter. Surely, we all get\u00a0along with someone, don\u2019t we? We all have friends, partners and families with whom we relate well.\u00a0We\u2019ve all interacted with a variety of people in different situations, from school to community groups\u00a0to the workplace to a yoga class. We all generally like to avoid antagonism, and we all do our best to get\u00a0along with others. Does this make us de facto \u201cpeople\u201d people, though?<\/p>\n

Like most families, not everyone gets along all the time. It is no different in the workplace, where people\u00a0of diverse backgrounds and levels of experience are made to work together on projects with others not\u00a0chosen by them. Clashes occur, indeed office fights are the brunt of many popular sitcoms. So if\/when\u00a0we are face with such situations, how do we react? How do we resolve differences in opinion, either\u00a0between employees or between and employee and his customer (in our case our archival researcher,\u00a0our undergraduate student, our museum visitor, our library patron)?<\/p>\n

In general, interpersonal skills are skills people use to properly interact with each other.<\/strong> Some of these\u00a0basic skills include speaking, listening, following direction and general attitude. Built over one\u2019s lifetime,\u00a0these skills are usually in conjunction with personal character traits. It is our ability to get along with\u00a0others and to maintain that relationship throughout its duration.<\/p>\n

Of course, we must interact differently in any given situation and with any other individual. It may be a\u00a0challenge for us to speak to a library client who doesn\u2019t speak our first language, or one may be hesitant\u00a0to speak to those with whom they don\u2019t converse regularly (such as young children or the elderly). On\u00a0a slightly unrelated note, many people claim to be \u201ccat\u201d or \u201cdog\u201d people, but can we afford to be that\u00a0choosy when it comes to those with whom or for whom we work? The answer is likely no.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, when pondering all this the best place to start is your own experiences. Thinking back on\u00a0your years in school or on the job, how did you overcome sticky personality clashes with your managers\u00a0or co-workers? Is there any way you might improve upon the way you handled a given situation<\/strong> the next\u00a0time it comes around? Job interviews are full of questions and scenarios such as this one. It might be a\u00a0good idea to keep a running journal of reflections on this subject matter if you feel that this is an area\u00a0you really need to improve upon.<\/p>\n

So, what interpersonal skills have you seen to be most important in your personal and professional life?\u00a0Being a list person, I\u2019d like to pick out specific characteristics I\u2019ve most admired in others to answer this\u00a0question. Patience, empathy, and the ability to not take things personally all jump out at me.<\/p>\n

Thinking over your experiences you might find that you\u2019ve changed over time. In what areas have\u00a0you grown or improved when it comes to relating with others?<\/strong> Perhaps you\u2019ve learned how to make\u00a0small talk, or learned not to focus too much on procedural details when it comes to completing a\u00a0project. What strategies, if any, did you use to grow more patient, less offended and more accepting\u00a0of diversity? Did an experience of another teach you a valuable lesson, did you read a transformative\u00a0novel? Did you finally start taking the time to listen to a co-worker\u2019s body language as well as the words\u00a0they were communicating?<\/p>\n

I think that a reflection such as this one on your interpersonal skills is an important one for preparing\u00a0for job interviews. Reflecting on your experiences, how might you highlight your excellent interpersonal\u00a0skills and address your weaknesses in an interview?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samantha Read, Head Editor, INALJ New Brunswick De-Bunking Interpersonal Skills You\u2019ll see the phrase \u201cinterpersonal skills\u201d on most job ads these days. Good interpersonal skills are\u00a0essential for any position in any organization. What exactly constitutes being interpersonal, though?\u00a0When it all boils down to it, what does it really take to confidently claim that yes, indeed,…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":57091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,5584,4391,6012,6011,5919,6010],"class_list":["post-63306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-communication","tag-inalj-new-brunswick","tag-interpersonal","tag-interpersonal-skills","tag-samantha-read","tag-social-interaction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/2013Upload-001.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-gt4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}