What skills does a caregiver bring?

A caregiver assists sick, elderly or disabled persons with everyday activities. A caregiver’s purpose is to make day-to-day life easier, safer and more comfortable, performing tasks such as:

• Keeping the patient’s safety and well-being at the forefront of all duties
• Assisting patients with personal care, including bathing, dressing, administering medication, eating and attending doctor’s appointments
• Monitoring patient medications, reporting any changes in the patient’s health and updating health charts as needed
• Communicating with patients’ families and doctors concerning their medical and emotional condition

Skills

Caregivers need several hard and soft skills to succeed in a hospice or home health aide setting. FineSkilz Canada’s caregiver certification covers both hard and soft skills.

Organization

Caregivers need to know where medical supplies and other necessary items, like car keys and medications, are always. Organization is essential for caregivers, especially in the event of a medical emergency.

Time management

Caregivers must prioritize tasks and work efficiently to complete those tasks within the allotted time frame. They also use this skill to break time-consuming tasks up into manageable portions, ensuring that all tasks are completed by the end of the shift.

Communication

Caregivers must have exceptional written and verbal communication skills. Because a client may be unable to communicate on their own, their caregiver needs to interact with doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals on their behalf, and they should communicate necessary care instructions and updates to family members or other caretakers. 

Physical strength

Caregivers regularly lift patients, carry groceries, perform housekeeping and conduct other activities requiring physical strength and endurance. Caregivers usually remain on their feet for long stretches of time, sometimes nearly all day. A certain level of strength and stamina is necessary to complete many essential tasks while protecting the health of their clients.

Initiative

Often working alone in a patient’s home, caregivers need to make informed decisions and acting in an urgent situation.

Technical skills

Caregivers need to be proficient in using medical equipment such as blood pressure and heart rate monitors, first aid tools, mobility aids (wheelchairs, crutches, canes, walkers), motorized beds, prosthetic or orthotic devices and digital devices to properly conduct their work.  

Hard and Soft Skills.

The key differences between hard skills and soft skills are how they are gained and put to use in the workplace. Hard skills are often gained through education or specific training. They include competencies like how to use a certain machine, software or another tool. Soft skills are more often seen as personality traits you may have spent your whole life developing. They are called upon when you manage your time, communicate with other people or confront a difficult situation for the first time. Put another way, hard skills could be defined as your technical knowledge whereas soft skills are your overall habits in the workplace.

Hard skills are technical knowledge or training that you have gained through any life experience, including in your career or education. For example:

Every job will require certain technical skills specific to that industry.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are personal habits and traits that shape how you work, on your own and with others. Effective communication, for example, is a key soft skill many employers seek. Some others include dependability, effective teamwork and active listening.

Soft skills are essential to your career and as you search for jobs. While hard skills necessary to successfully perform technical tasks in a job, soft skills are necessary to create a positive and functional work environment. For this reason, employers often seek individuals who possess proven soft and hard skills. Some employers may prefer to select candidates who have a stronger set of soft skills over hard skills, as soft skills are at times more difficult to develop.

For example, you may be seeking a job in Human Resources but lack prior knowledge of data analysis tools. If you have references that can attest to the effectiveness of your soft skills, such as empathy, open-mindedness and communication, an employer may choose you over another candidate whose hard skills are stronger but who lacks the same level of soft skills.

Soft skills list

Some of the most in-demand soft skills include:

• Integrity
• Dependability
• Effective communication
• Open-mindedness
• Teamwork
• Creativity
• Problem-solving
• Critical thinking
• Adaptability
• Organization
• Willingness to learn
• Empathy

How to include hard and soft skills on a resume

When updating or creating your resume, you might consider including a “Skills” section that highlights your abilities most relevant to the position. This is especially important for positions with specific technical skills requirements. For clues on what to include and prioritize in your skills section, carefully review the job posting you’re applying for. Hard and soft skills the employers wants to see might be found in the “requirements,” “education” or “desired skills” sections of the post.

Hard skills and soft skills are both necessary to find career success. Although people gain and develop these skills in different ways, FineSkilz Canada’s certification program can help you learn and develop both hard and soft skills prior to applying for jobs.

How to highlight your skills throughout the interview process

Once you make it to the interview phase, you will have an opportunity to display your soft skills and elaborate more on your hard skills. You may be asked to display your hard skills with a test or portfolio.

You can highlight key soft skills by:

• Showing up on time or early to the interview (punctuality or dependability)
• Maintaining eye contact (active listening)
• Speaking clearly when prompted (effective communication)
• Answering questions about your resume and experience honestly (integrity)
• Asking follow-up questions (active listening)

You can highlight your hard skills by:

• Elaborating on your experience and training
• Providing a portfolio (digital or physical)
• Effectively answering technical questions related to the work
• Asking follow-up questions related to the work
• Effectively working through skills tests (if required at the interview)

The most effective way to showcase your hard and soft skills is to share specific stories from your experience that directly relates to the requirements of the job you’re interviewing for. When you are telling a story, begin by presenting the situation, describe the task at hand, explain the actions you took and end with the result you achieved. This is called the STAR technique and it is a recommended method for providing examples with structure your interviewers can easily understand