Most jobs require the candidate to have good written and oral communication skills. The oral communication becomes more important at the workplace and in fact supersedes the written communication in many ways (unless of course you are applying for a writing position).
Right from appearing for an interview to interacting with your clients, good communication skills can make or break your chance of getting that job or getting that promotion. Let’s see the different areas in your career where communication skills are at work:

  • The first telephone interview
  • Face-to-face interview
  • Negotiating salary after the job offer
  • Interacting with your boss
  • Interacting with your colleagues
  • Presenting before clients or customers
  • Requesting promotion
  • Persuading to work part-time or on flexible work schedule

If you are interacting with clients, customers or employees and management of an organization on a daily basis, you poor communication skills can even cost you your job.
It becomes very prevalent in the tech world where we see employees from all over the world and many a time the inability to communicate well can lower you on the performance radar. Try to focus on and improve on the soft skills on a regular basis. You may take courses on public speaking (which very often your company may reimburse), be a part of the Toastmasters group which encourages good public speaking and presentation skills through regular interaction and effective evaluations by the group members.
And often just get out of the cubicle and interact with your colleagues not only within your cultural network but with others who present a different speaking style. A multi-linguist culture is the norm of the present workplace; make the best of it by learning from all and trying to improve on your communications skills which is an essential element to your career success.

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