7 Problem-Solving Skills That Make You An Invaluable Employee

As the job market becomes increasingly more competitive, skill enhancement and career development becomes essential. To gain a competitive edge, many job seekers will upskill by taking courses to develop their hard and soft skills. Soft skills such as public speaking and conflict resolution are important if you would like to take on more responsibilities in your role. These can be learned quite easily, and issues that require using these skills rarely arise. It could be more useful to learn harder yet more in-demand skills, such as problem-solving skills, in order to improve in your career. We’ll go through how problem-solving skills can help you in both the competitive job market and how you can develop them yourself.

There is no singular ‘problem-solving skill’, as problem-solving involves calling on a range of other skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, organization, and information processing, to overcome obstacles and find solutions. Problem-solving is a dynamic skill that requires you to understand issues and plan for their resolution. Problem-solving skills are highly sought after in the job market, as employers want to hire people who do not shy away from challenges and can resolve important issues in their industry or company.

Problem-solving skills have a few core components: 

• Identifying and defining problems: finding the core of the problem at hand can involve working backwards to see what parts of a business plan or product are not optimized. Being able to do this effectively is key to finding a successful solution.
• Generating creative solutions: lateral thinking is a valuable part of the problem solving skillset, as the most obvious solutions don’t always work. 
• Evaluating and selecting the best solution: a full evaluation of the costs and time needed to implement the solution should be taken into consideration before deciding on the best solution

Employers and recruiters are looking for people with demonstrated problem-solving skills, as the problems faced by companies today become more complex. Problem-solving involves using a variety of other skills, which can vary depending on the industry. Having a strong problem-solving skillset can have other positive effects on your work, including: 

• Enhanced Decision-Making: Being decisive and not getting caught up on small details can allow you to make confident choices in the problem-solving process. This can overall speed up the time taken by employees to come up with a solution and streamline your decision-making process. 
• Adaptability: Being able to revise, change, and adapt to the problem based on the resources and feedback available is highly valuable in any job. Being adaptable means you can easily produce solutions that address the issue at hand, which is especially valuable in highly competitive and constantly changing industries.
• Innovation and Creativity: lateral thinking in the problem-solving process can build a mindset of innovation and creativity. You can also call on your experiences in other roles or from your hobbies if you think they are relevant to the solution. Thinking creatively and going beyond the typical solutions can help build strength in the company or product you are working on. 
• Building Resilience: ​​problem-solving is an iterative process of trying out many different ideas. Sometimes, the feedback or results are not ideal, and you would need to start again. Understanding that this is a part of the process can help you build your resilience and other problem-solving skills.
• Effective Communication: improving your problem-solving skills means you need to work on your communication. Learning to be diplomatic polite and making sure everyone is working together is essential to finding solutions.
• Improves Job Performance and Employability: working on your problem-solving skills means you will become valuable to your team. If you can effectively problem-solve with proven results, this boosts your employability as well, as this is what recruiters look for when screening resumes.

Problem-solving skills are made up of many types of soft skills, which you can highlight in your resume or cover letter. You can mention the skills you have and show how your skills have led to results. Think back to the achievements you have had in your previous jobs and mention what skills you used to achieve those results. Some examples of ways you can emphasize problem-solving skills on your cover letter are: 

Analytical Thinking

Analytical thinking involves processing information, taking the most important parts of it, and processing it in a way that provides meaning to your project or company. This sounds like a technical skill, but it applies across many industries. Try mentioning how an analytical approach to a problem improves results; mention the achievements that resulted as well. 

Critical Thinking

Think of times where you needed to evaluate and organize a solution based on lots of information. Mention the tools, guidelines or processes you used and how you used that information to come up with solutions. 

Creativity

Mention a time you came up with a new approach to an issue, and why it was implemented. Creativity doesn’t necessarily mean artistic; you can refer to innovative ideas and methods, too.

Research

Mention how data was used to make informed decisions and what information was used during the process.. Mention the tools or resources you used and why, so you can show your capabilities along with your problem-solving abilities: 

Decision Making

Share a time you made a decision that affected the overall process or development in a task or project. Decision-making isn’t reserved only for higher-ups or executives in the company – every role requires some level of decision-making.

Communication

Communication is considered to be a vital skill for problem-solving. Being able to articulate thoughts and ideas clearly, actively listening to others, and fostering open dialogue are all important components of strong communication skills. Without these skills, misunderstandings and miscommunications can arise, leading to further complications and challenges in solving problems. Therefore, it is important to prioritize and develop one's communication abilities in order to increase the likelihood of successful problem-solving outcomes

Teamwork

Talk about working in teams, especially if there are many people involved. You can talk about the roles of other employees, if everyone comes from a different background, as well as how you achieved cooperation throughout the team.

Problem-solving skills are necessary for every role at every level, but that doesn’t mean you need to learn every soft skill out there. For instance, a manager's problem-solving skills might involve more time management or conflict resolution than a regular employee working in a team to design a new prototype.

Problem-solving skills involve a variety of other soft skills that are utilized based on the problem that needs to be solved. Instead of trying to improve every soft skill, here are our tips for working on building your problem-solving skills:

Step 1: Acknowledge The Areas You Want To Improve

Not every soft skill would be helpful in improving your job or career. Think about the soft skills you utilize on an everyday basis, and start with improving those. For instance, if you always work in a team, try starting with communication or teamwork.

Step 2: Define Clear Goals

The problem-solving skills you should work on will depend on your goals. Whether you want a pay rise, promotion, or to move into a different role, think about what problem-solving skills a highly sought-after candidate would have and work on those first. You can even check job descriptions for your role to see what problem-solving skills the employer listed. An example of a goal you could have could be wanting a promotion to a role that requires decision-making and team management skills – you can work on these first. 

Step 3: Identify Your Problem-Solving Weaknesses

Reflect on your problem-solving skills in your everyday life – are there certain problems or methods you struggle with? Acknowledging your weaknesses can provide you with the essential problem-solving skills that you should work on. 

Step 4: Learn Problem-Solving Techniques

Based on the problem-solving skills you’d like to work on, there are plenty of resources that teach you how to improve on them. Your company could have its own internal resources for upskilling or be able to provide extra training for you. If not, there are other free resources that you can try. For instance, there are many workplace communication and conflict resolution resources, or you can try logic games for more technique-based problem-solving skills. 

Step 5: Practice Regularly 

If you already know the weaknesses in your problem-solving skill set, you can practice at work when the issues arise. When you encounter frustrating, difficult or complicated challenges at work, remember the techniques you learned about and put them into practice. You can reflect on them afterward, and note down what strategies you utilized, and what the result was.

Step 6: Learn From Experts

Try to reach out to a manager or supervisor and let them know what problem-solving skills you want to work on. They might be able to provide you with resources or advice on how they improved their problem-solving skills. Otherwise, you can try online resources or YouTube videos from people in your industry and learn from them.

Step 7: Test Your Skills

You can test your problem-solving skills by going through hypothetical situations with your coworkers or managers. Going through your thought process with others can help you develop your problem-solving skills on the job. For more technical skills, you can try logic games or quizzes, which can help you solve problems outside of the context of work. 

Step 8: Seek Feedback

Ask your coworkers or managers for feedback on how you performed after completing a task that required problem-solving skills. Ask about what they thought of your approach, how you interacted with the team, and if the results were adequate. They might provide a different perspective on how you can improve your problem-solving skills, further widening your skillset.

There are resources available for you to take initiative and learn problem-solving skills. Most of the resources come in the form of short courses, which can be as short as one hour and as long as a couple of months. You should choose your resources based on what you want to learn and your preferred learning style. Some resources you can use to develop your problem-solving skills include: 

• Udemy: an online learning platform with free courses in problem-solving skills 
• Alison: an online career development platform with courses in critical thinking, creative thinking, and other analytical and problem-solving skills
• Google’s Digital Learning has a variety of soft skills courses for free

Conclusion

Overall, problem-solving is not just one skill but a complex set of skills that will vary depending on your role and industry. Reflecting on your skills is an important part of the process so that you can plan and decide on what soft skills you should work on in order to become an invaluable employee. Problem-solving builds resilience and adaptability, which can assist you not only in your job but also when job hunting, as the job market becomes increasingly competitive. Putting your problem-solving skills to the test and asking for feedback can help you rapidly develop robust skills. Asking for feedback can help you get insight into how experts and industry leaders solve problems. 

For more advice on career development and building soft skills, you can try browsing Cakeresume!

— Originally written by Bronte McNamara —