What are communication and interpersonal skills?
Selection criteria can be challenging when they mix communication and interpersonal skills. How do these skills differ and what sort of examples are relevant to each? The two are related and yet refer to different sets of skills. Communicating skills are the skills needed to use language to interact with others. The primary skills are reading, writing, listening and speaking. These skills enable people to share information, ideas and feelings and to transfer meaning among themselves. There are numerous definitions of communication. They range from very narrow definitions which confine communication to the ‘transmission of information’ to broader concepts about the sharing and negotiation of meaning. Apart from intra-communication (communicating with oneself), communicating takes place in the context of relationships with other people. This is where interpersonal skills enter the picture. My ‘message’ might be clear (to me) but if I don’t take account of who I am speaking to, my relatio
