SOFT SKILLS
How Can I Learn Soft Skills Online for Free?
Improve your personal and professional potential with soft skills—for free
Soft skills are in demand, and improving your soft skills can boost your career prospects and personal wellbeing — best of all, you can learn soft skills online for free through flexible, engaging and self-paced courses.
That this article contains affiliate links. If you buy through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only suggest products or services that I have personally used or have otherwise vetted.Soft skills are becoming more and more important in today’s workplace as employers recognize the value that they provide.
They’re at the heart of what drives company and personal success — communication, empathy and adaptability — and they play a vital role in the wellbeing of both companies and people.
And it’s not something that’s easy to hide — if your soft skills are weak, it will show.
So, how can you go about improving your soft skills to boost your career prospects and bring out your fullest potential?
You can do it by making a decision to learn and practice the soft skills that matter for you!
It’s not always easy, though, since soft skills are related to human behavior and differ from the so-called hard skills you may be more familiar with — like math, accounting or grammar.
But soft skills can be learned. And, fortunately, there are several excellent courses available to help improve your soft skills.
These courses are offered by MOOCs — massive open online course providers — so they have all the benefits of online learning.
They’re also self-paced, flexible and taught by high-caliber institutions.
And best of all, many of them are absolutely free!
You can usually pay a small fee, however, for certification if you wish.
In this article, we’ll look at a few of the best free online soft skill courses available today.
The best free online soft skills courses
EdX
EdX is a highly regarded learning platform that was founded by Harvard and MIT. It has a range of soft skills courses taught by leading institutions.
Top picks include:
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence at Work
Strengthen your empathy, trust and collaboration and create more innovative, productive and satisfying experiences at work.
- Taught by the University of California, Berkeley
- Free (optional fee for verified certificate)
- Self-paced, 1–2 hours per week for 4 weeks
- What you’ll learn:
(i) What are the psychological and biological roots of empathy, trust and cooperation?
(ii) How the skills of emotional and social intelligence support organizational happiness and productivity
(iii) How to strengthen empathy and resolve conflicts constructively, using research-based strategies
(iv) Lead with social intelligence
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Let’s Get Personal: Working with Personality Type
Understand personality types, including your own, and use this to your advantage to be more effective in the workplace.
- Taught by the University of Maryland
- Free (optional fee for verified certificate)
- Self-paced, 2–3 hours per week for 6 weeks
- What you’ll learn:
(i) What are personality types and why do they matter at work?
(ii) How to communicate with different personality types and manage conflict and stress
(iii) Build teams and appreciating diversity amongst personality types
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Innovation and Creativity Management
Turn ideas into successful products and services by learning how to drive innovation and creativity in your company.
- Taught by RWTH Aachen University
- Free (optional fee for verified certificate)
- Self-paced, 6–8 hours per week for 6 weeks
- What you’ll learn:
(i) How to successfully manage different types of innovation projects
(ii) How to harness individual and organizational creativity
(iii) The importance of soft skills for managing innovation successfully
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Public Speaking
Considered by many to be one of their greatest fears, public speaking can be a powerful form of communication. Build confidence as a speaker, using simple tools and skills to prepare and deliver memorable presentations.
- Taught by the Rochester Institute of Technology
- Free (optional fee for verified certificate)
- Self-paced, 4–6 hours per week for 3 weeks
- What you’ll learn:
(i) The essential elements of speech communication
(ii) Methods for controlling public speaking anxiety
(iii) How to craft a clear and impactful speech
(iv) How to critique other communicators
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Coursera
Founded by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera is a world-class learning platform that offers a range of learning options.
The following are some top course picks in soft skills:
Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success
Learn behaviors and techniques to augment your inner creativity, harness new ideas and seize opportunities more effectively.
- Taught by Imperial College London
- Free to access course content (optional fee for graded assignments and certificate)
- Self-paced, approximately 20 hours to complete
- What you’ll learn:
(i) Understand creative thinking principles and techniques
(ii) Apply creativity to global challenges as well as everyday problem-solving
(iii) Match creative thinking techniques appropriately with problems and opportunities
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Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills
The practice and process of successful negotiation, both personally and professionally.
- Taught by the University of Michigan
- Free to access course content (optional fee for graded assignments and certificate)
- Self-paced, approximately 17 hours to complete
- What you’ll learn:
(i) Skills and strategies for successful negotiation
(ii) Planning and analysis in preparing for negotiation
(iii) Tools and techniques for an effective negotiation process
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Converting Challenges into Opportunities
Leverage left- and right-brain thinking to analyze problems, spur creativity and implement innovative solutions to workplace challenges.
- Taught by the University of California, San Diego
- Free to access course content (optional fee for graded assignments and certificate)
- Self-paced, approximately 10 hours to complete
- What you’ll learn:
(i) Design out-of-the-box whole of brain thinking
(ii) Prioritize and apply quantitative research methods to workplace problems
(iii) Use creative problem-solving to implement innovative solutions
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GoSkills
GoSkills is a little different from EdX and Coursera — it’s an online learning platform with no particular university affiliation. It offers a range of acclaimed courses to meet a variety of personal and professional goals.
GoSkills has a subscription-based model, so there are no free courses. But you can sign up for a 7-day free trial with unlimited access to learning content during the trial.
And if you do choose to stay with GoSkills after the free trial, the monthly subscription rates are very reasonable.
An interesting feature of GoSkills is their focus on short, bite-sized lessons to make learning easier — this has been shown to be a very effective learning approach.
A few of the popular soft skills courses available from GoSkills are:
Body Language
Overcome your nerves and impress your clients with invaluable tips and advice on body language — come across as confident and self-assured in business situations, appear poised and relaxed when meeting clients and deliver interviews and speeches with ease.
- 7-day free trial available
- Certificate on completion
- 20 engaging video tutorials
- Self-paced learning, approximately 4 hours to complete
- What you’ll learn:
(i) Valuable insights on how to use body language to communicate effectively
(ii) Best practices for delivering a speech and media interviews
(iii) How to avoid commonly held misconceptions about body language
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Leadership
Strong leadership skills can dramatically increase your performance and employability — discover 7 ways to ensure exceptional leadership that influences and motivates others and fulfills your potential.
- 7-day free trial available
- Certificate on completion
- 21 practical video tutorials
- Self-paced learning, approximately 10 hours to complete
- What you’ll learn:
(i) Influence and lead different personality types
(ii) Set and implement purpose-driven targets and overcome challenges
(iii) Motivate others and change behaviors through strategies of consequence, reward and reinforcement
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Customer Service
Skills in customer service are highly valued — fast-track your career by knowing how to create and nurture a loyal customer base.
- 7-day free trial available
- Certificate on completion
- 22 practical video tutorials
- Self-paced learning, approximately 11 hours to complete
- What you’ll learn:
(i) Understand the role of psychology in delivering excellent customer service
(ii) Learn how to engage with customers and provide positive interactions
(iii) Identify and resolve customer problems by providing solutions that exceed expectations
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Conclusion
Soft skills are valuable and can make a real difference for your personal and professional growth. They’re linked to behavior, so learning them isn’t the same as learning skills like math, science or accounting.
Fortunately, there are many excellent online courses available for learning soft skills.
These courses are flexible, interactive and self-paced. They’re taught by leading institutions and experienced professionals. And many of them are absolutely free!
It’s worth investing time and effort in improving your soft skills, and it’s easy to get started with one of the free online courses listed in this article today.
