1. To secure jobs and internships.
2. To build strong relationships with friends, families, colleagues and superiors.
3. To discover more about myself.
To secure a job or internship, a clearly written curriculum vitae, along with appropriate and confident response at interviews are vital. To achieve these, I need to have effective communication skills. Whether at interviews or other situations, when we have a good impression of a person, we are likely to infer that the person has more positive attributes or even disregard negative information about that person.* To leave a good first impression through writing and face-to-face interactions, we need effective communication skills.
Friends, families and colleagues are the people most important to us. Effective communication skills enable me to better analyse their thoughts and actions, learn more about them and thus be able to act appropriately to strengthen our relationships. In doing so, I can foster closer relationships with them and encourage them to open up with me.
Using effective communication skills, I can know more about myself by how people interact with me. I can then take steps to improve myself. For example, when my project mates choose not to consult me on an important decision, it may mean that they think I am not capable of making a correct decision or it is simply due to a lack of time. Using effective communication skills will enable me to verify which scenario it actually is.
*Joseph A. DeVito. The Interpersonal Communication Book Eleventh edition. Pg 87. Pearson Education, Inc. 2007.
