8 Best Soft Skills Courses Online to Boost Your Professional Growth

When it comes to building a successful career, soft skills never go out of style. Here are the best soft skills courses that you can enroll in online.

If you’re browsed through popular career development courses, you’ve likely noticed that a significant portion of those courses are usually dedicated to teaching soft skills.

This is no coincidence, and it applies regardless of the industry you’re in.

Why?

Well, soft skills have more to do with who we are than what we know.

Ultimately, a long and successful career depends on the entire package - your personality and professional skills as a whole - not just the technical knowledge you may have acquired.

With this in mind, here is a list of the best soft skills courses online that will help you improve the way you work with others and react to changes in your environment.

These courses cover topics ranging from communication and critical thinking to teamwork and time management, so you can grow your confidence in core areas that will never become outdated.

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What are the Best Soft Skills Courses Online?

Here are the best soft skills courses online that every professional should look into:

1. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills

Negotiation is a key skill for workplace success, since no business can survive without profitable contracts.

Therefore, it's one of the best soft skills to pay attention to first.

Almost a million people have already enrolled in this popular negotiation course offered by the University of Michigan.

In the course, you’ll learn about and practice the four steps to a successful negotiation:

Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
Close: Create a Contract
Perform and Evaluate: The End Game

You'll build your knowledge through short, interactive videos and questions that test your understanding of negotiation strategy and skills.

Then, towards the end of the course, you'll get to practice your newly developed skills with a friend or fellow course participant from another part of the world.

Course Syllabus:

Week 1: Welcome to Successful Negotiation!
Week 2: Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
Week 3: Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
Week 4: Close: Create a Contract
Week 5: Perform and Evaluate: The End Game
Week 6: Practice Your Negotiation Skills
Week 7: Final Examination

Key course features:

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion.

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance with your schedule.

Approx. 17 hours to complete

=> Enroll in the Successful Negotiation online course here.

2. Impromptu Speaking

There are many occasions in both our professional and personal life when we are called on unexpectedly to deliver an impromptu speech.

This course by Virtual Speech will give you the techniques to speak convincingly in these impromptu situations.

Course objectives:

Understand the importance of impromptu speaking in the modern world

Effectively deal with on-the-spot speaking situations such as presentations, interview questions, or media interviews

Explore and learn from real examples of impromptu speaking

Review strategies for buying time when called on unexpectedly to speak

Learn how to speak in difficult situations, even when you are unprepared

For maximum learning, the course includes a fun simulation game where you'll be challenged to talk about six random images for 30 seconds, while getting feedback at the end on how you did.

By the end of the course, you'll learn to overcome your fear of impromptu speeches and instead view such situations as opportunities to influence others, inform customers or colleagues, and make an unforgettable impression...when done right.

=> Enroll in the Impromptu Speaking course on Virtual Speech here.

3. Skills for Success

The workplace skills that employers value are changing, and most traditional education paths do not match employers’ evolving needs.

The Skills for Success professional certificate on Edx is designed to help you build in-demand workplace competencies that will ensure you stand out as an applicant and employee.

Through innovative online learning techniques, you will develop and enhance the hard and soft skills that are critical to creating a marketable personal brand.

The program includes the following five courses:

Course 1: Self-Assessment - Developing Your Strengths

Course 2: Communication Skills and Teamwork

Course 3: Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills

Course 4: Business and Data Analysis Skills

Course 5: Resume, Networking, and Interview Skills

Key course features:

Length: 4 months
Effort: 3-4 hours per week
Course Type: Self-paced on your time
Certificate available upon completion

=> Enroll in the Edx Skills for Success online course here.

4. Communication Skills for Engineers

This three-course specialization is one of the best soft skills courses for engineers who want to improve their ability to clearly communicate complex ideas and technical project plans.

Learners will build a toolkit of communication skills that will give them the knowledge and confidence to be an effective engineering leader.

Key topics include communicating across cultures, genders, and generations, giving persuasive presentations, holding effective meetings with global teams, and handling difficult conversations.

Program Syllabus:

Course 1: Oral Communication for Engineering Leaders

Course 2: Interpersonal Communication for Engineering Leaders

Course 3: Writing Skills for Engineering Leaders

Key course features:

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online courses

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Flexible Schedule

Set and maintain flexible deadlines.

Beginner Level

No prior experience required.

Approximately 4 months to complete

Suggested pace of 5 hours/week.

=> Enroll in the Communication Skills for Engineers course here.

5. Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

Learning how to learn is one of the most important soft skills that you can develop, because it's the basic foundation for all types of growth.

In this popular course on Coursera, you'll learn some invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines.

For example, you'll learn about how the brain encapsulates (“chunks”) information, memory techniques, illusions of learning, and tips for dealing with procrastination.

Course Syllabus:

Week 1: What is Learning?
Week 2: Chunking
Week 3: Procrastination and Memory
Week 4: Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

If you’ve been struggling with your workload, this course will provide you with a treasure trove of practical techniques that will help you tackle tough subjects and manage your time better, so you can get the most out of what you learn...and actually enjoy it!

Key course features:

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance with your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion.

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 15 hours to complete

=> Enroll in the Learning How to Learn online course here.

6. Humanities & Soft Skills

This MiroMasters program on EDx is designed to help you consolidate key career skills such as negotiation, leadership, communication and critical thinking.

The program is composed of professional postgraduate courses based on the Full-Time Master in Business Management by Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of the most prestigious business schools in Mexico.

You will learn to:

Develop a style of leadership that is suited to your strengths and the needs of the situation

Solve complex problems that meet the interests and objectives of the parties involved

Implement the key negotiation skills and styles to carry out effective negotiations and reach satisfactory agreements

Develop communication skills: assertiveness and empathy

Internalize the elements and intellectual standards that are part of the critical thinking process

The following six courses are included in this program:

Critical thinking: reasoned decision making
Effective Communication for Today's Leader
Leadership focused on Human Flourishing
Negotiation Skills and Effective Communication
Negotiation Strategies and Styles
Leadership and organizational behavior

Key course features:

Length: 6 months
Effort: 5-8 hours per week
Self-paced: Progress at your own speed
Expert instruction: 6-graduate level courses

=> Enroll in the Humanities & Social Skills course on Edx here.

7. Leading People and Teams

In this course by Michigan University, you will learn essential leadership skills, including how to inspire and motivate individuals, manage talent, influence without authority, and lead teams.

Highlights include interviews from Jeff Brodsky, Global Head of HR for Morgan Stanley, and John Beilein, Head Coach of the University of Michigan Men’s Basketball Team, where they talk about the leadership challenges they've had to overcome during their careers.

Program Syllabus:

Course 1: Inspiring and Motivating Individuals
Course 2: Managing Talent
Course 3: Influencing People
Course 4: Leading Teams
Course 5: Leading People and Teams Capstone

Top students who complete the program will be eligible to receive one or more of the following:

Office hours with the faculty
One credit toward Michigan Ross’ Distinguished Leader certificate
A waived application fee to Michigan Ross graduate programs
A LinkedIn recommendation/endorsement by Ross faculty

Key course features:

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion.

100% online courses

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Flexible Schedule

Set and maintain flexible deadlines.

Beginner Level

No prior experience required.

Approximately 5 months to complete

Suggested pace of 3 hours/week.

=> Enroll in the Leading People and Teams online course here.

8. Persuasive Business Storytelling

Contrary to popular belief, facts and figures are not the main currency for influence.

If you want people to lean in with curiosity when you deliver your message, you need to connect on a human level.

That's where storytelling comes in...

This Business Storytelling course on Virtual Speech engages you in a hybrid approach to storytelling (online classes + simulations) that will increase your communication effectiveness.

Course objectives:

Learn how to be memorable, confident and relevant so you are heard

Streamline content through stories and save time in presentations

Inspire colleagues, unstick resistance to an idea and encourage action

Overcome difficulties with getting your message heard and decisions made

Towards the end of the course, you'll get to apply the techniques you've learned in a TEDx style scenario, where you'll receive feedback on your performance, including an eye contact rating and voice analysis.

Key course features:

8 hours of online classes
4 case studies
5 web-based simulations
All simulation features
Quizzes and assessment
Earn a digital course certificate
Flexible, self-led format
Access to updated content

=> Enroll in the Persuasive Business Storytelling online course here.

Final Thoughts

So there we have it, a roundup of some of the best soft skills courses you can find online.

As you can see, there are so many skill categories involved, so don't feel discouraged if you've discovered multiple areas for improvement.

At the end of the day, soft skills are always a work in progress, even if you're an expert in your industry.

However, as you build strong relationships with colleagues and clients and achieve your professional goals, you'll see that the rewards are well worth the effort!

All the best,

Roli