It’s the soft skills for me

There’s an old say­ing that those that think more than an inch past their nose are suc­cess­ful. Plan­ning ahead and think­ing of oth­ers is impor­tant in your per­son­al life, pro­fes­sion­al life and in busi­ness. No mat­ter your area of exper­tise, your word, time­li­ness and rap­port with oth­ers account for a large part of your accom­plish­ments. We tell you that YEC is always look­ing ahead and look­ing out for you, plan­ning for a brighter future for our mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ty. But these aren’t just words. We put our time and ener­gy into being a com­pa­ny you can trust. We work with integri­ty and exem­pli­fy depend­abil­i­ty to show you our mem­bers come first. We’re nev­er afraid to do the hard work and you should­n’t be either.

We call these impor­tant attrib­ut­es soft skills. Sure, YEC is focused on the tech­ni­cal skills used by employ­ees to get the job done. For exam­ple, our line­men are skilled at build­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion lines and man­ag­ing equip­ment to pow­er your life and we have trained accoun­tants who man­age the books. While these tal­ents are impor­tant, they can be taught. The will­ing­ness to work hard, go the extra mile and put ser­vice to oth­ers first are char­ac­ter­is­tics that we search for in new hires. Some­one who has hard skills and who is empa­thet­ic, cre­ative, com­mu­nica­tive, agile and resilient lands the job. More­over, we chal­lenge all YEC employ­ees to live by YEC’s four pil­lars of strong cul­ture: embody­ing humil­i­ty, rela­tion­al wis­dom, hunger for knowl­edge and a fam­i­ly-first atti­tude.

We’re not alone. Indus­tries are say­ing the same thing. Accord­ing to Linked­In’s “Glob­al Tal­ent Trends,” 80% of indus­tries say soft skills are increas­ing­ly impor­tant to com­pa­ny suc­cess. The same sur­vey also report­ed that 92% of par­tic­i­pants labeled soft skills more impor­tant than hard skills. These indus­try par­tic­i­pants aren’t just around the coun­try, but they are right here at home. Take a look at what they are say­ing and some inter­est­ing facts about what employ­ers are look­ing for in can­di­dates to fill qual­i­ty jobs.

So why do we care? Sim­ple. We want the best for our mem­bers, and we want to open the door to many oppor­tu­ni­ties that lie at the feet of our youngest gen­er­a­tion. Enter­ing the work­force with soft skills and a port­fo­lio of hard skills learned from a tech­ni­cal col­lege is a sol­id career path and exact­ly the type of tal­ent for which high-pay­ing, local indus­tries are search­ing to hire. Whether you are look­ing for a job or start­ing to plan your future career path, we encour­age you to brush up on your soft skills so that you stand out among the crowd. It will serve you well.

Sin­cere­ly,

 

 

Paul Basha
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer

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Do we owe you?

Each year, YEC tries to con­tact mem­bers who have relo­cat­ed so that we can pay any unclaimed cap­i­tal cred­its. Remem­ber, YEC is a not-for­prof­it, mem­ber-owned util­i­ty and, there­fore, monies over oper­at­ing costs are returned to you.

Even after you move, your mem­ber­ship car­ries val­ue. If you know any friends or fam­i­ly mem­bers who might be includ­ed on the list or if you think YEC might owe you mon­ey, please search for their names and your name here. After all, the mon­ey is yours and we want to get it to you!

If you see your name, please con­tact our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at (803) 684‑4248 so we can process your account.