Employers nowadays put more emphasis on social skills. Some people believe that social skills are important in addition to good qualifications for job success. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Today’s work environment is more competitive than ever before and dynamic in nature. Social skills enable us to develop our own abilities to survive in a very competitive environment while helps a team to collaborate and perform better. These days, especially in times of transition and globalisation, technical skills and academic knowledge are not enough- social skills are also required to become a successful professional.
First, some social skills are quite mandatory for an employee to work in an office where people with different designations and skill set work together. Discipline, ability to criticise oneself, communication skills, negotiation skills, ability to give and take criticism and team capabilities enable someone to work in a multinational company and become a successful worker. Lack of those social skills will put someone far back in the race. Technical skills are essential to actually execute something while corporate and social skills are essential to working in a team or serving customers. They both are essential qualities of a good employee and hence both should be present to be successful in a job.
Second, our social skills take a very long time to develop while some technical skills could be taught to employees in few months. For instance, if someone with a very good academic background and social skills tries to learn how to operate a computer, would be able to do so in six months. However, no one can guarantee how long it will take to teach someone responsibility, self-confidence and discipline. It might take forever is some cases. From this regards, hiring authorities of a company should emphasise more on social skills of a candidate along with the other important qualifications for the job.
Finally, corporate offices are like a big tree with many branches and roots. The employees are often considered as the roots of a company and if the roots are not firm and healthy enough, the tree is sure to suffer. Social skills are important for the employees to act as healthy and performing roots for a company.
In summary, there is no denying to the fact that proper qualifications along with the better social skills are essential ingredients for the success of a person in professional life. The social skills among employees are also vital for the overall growth and productivity of an organisation as well. This is why a company must put a considerable emphasise on finding employees with better social skills and also arrange seminars and training sessions to enhance the employee's social skills.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Tighten comparison Original: more competitive than ever before and dynamic in nature Suggested revision: more competitive and dynamic than ever before Why it matters: Place both coordinated adjectives before the comparison for a more natural construction.
- 2. Fix verb form Original: helps Suggested revision: helping Why it matters: The participle is needed to coordinate this clause with the preceding action.
- 3. Fix dash spacing Original: enough- social Suggested revision: enough—social Why it matters: Use an em dash without surrounding spaces to join these independent clauses.
- 4. Avoid graded absolute Original: quite mandatory Suggested revision: essential Why it matters: Mandatory is an absolute adjective, so quite creates an awkward combination here.
- 5. Use natural plurals Original: designations and skill set Suggested revision: roles and skill sets Why it matters: Roles is more natural for workplace positions, and skill sets must agree with people.
- 6. Use precise term Original: team capabilities Suggested revision: teamwork skills Why it matters: Teamwork skills expresses the intended interpersonal ability more precisely.
- 7. Use formal phrasing Original: put someone far back in the race Suggested revision: put someone at a serious disadvantage Why it matters: This replacement states the disadvantage directly and suits an academic register.
- 8. Clarify vague wording Original: to actually execute something Suggested revision: for performing specific tasks Why it matters: Performing specific tasks is clearer and more precise than execute something.
- 9. Fix preposition Original: to Suggested revision: for Why it matters: Essential takes for before a gerund when expressing purpose.
- 10. Improve word order Original: They both are Suggested revision: Both are Why it matters: Both naturally precedes the verb when it is the subject of the clause.
- 11. Add article Original: in few months Suggested revision: in a few months Why it matters: The countable expression few months requires the article a here.
- 12. Add missing subject Original: would be able to do so Suggested revision: they would be able to do so Why it matters: The main clause needs an explicit subject after the conditional clause.
Suggested Rewrites
- more competitive than ever before and dynamic in nature more competitive and dynamic than ever before
- helps helping
- enough- social enough—social
- quite mandatory essential
- designations and skill set roles and skill sets
- team capabilities teamwork skills
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response presents a clear, consistent position and develops several relevant reasons for valuing social skills alongside qualifications. Its main limitation is that some support is repetitive or rather general, particularly the extended tree metaphor, while recurring awkward phrasing weakens precision. The highest priority is to replace broad assertions with one or two concrete, fully explained workplace examples and proofread sentence structures and collocations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
A clear position is sustained and supported with several relevant arguments, although some development remains general or repetitive.
Develop fewer points more deeply with specific workplace examples that demonstrate how social skills contribute to job success.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through a clear paragraph structure, though the final body paragraph adds limited substance and some linking is mechanical.
Give each body paragraph a distinct, fully developed purpose and use transitions that express the precise relationship between ideas.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a reasonably wide work-related vocabulary, but repetition and awkward collocations occasionally reduce precision.
Replace repeated references to social skills with precise alternatives and check collocations such as emphasis on, in this regard, and skill sets.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex structures is attempted successfully, but recurring errors in agreement, articles, prepositions, and clause construction remain noticeable.
Proofread complex sentences for complete subjects, accurate agreement, and correct article and preposition choices.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Employers nowadays put more emphasis on social skills. Some people believe that social skills are important in addition to good qualifications for job success. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.