The European Union, in the context of its Erasmus+ initiative, co-funded a free educational project called See First that aims to strengthen its learners’ soft skills, aiming in this way for them to strike a job more easily or upgrade professionally. The project is labelled “free” since all of its content and material is absolutely free of charge for any person interested to read, use and download, with no exceptions. Its target groups that can benefit are:  Youngsters aged 18-30  Recent higher education graduates  Job seekers  Those that wish to upgrade professionally  Educators  Career coaches The soft skills upgrade is achieved through game like practical exercises (“Activities”) that are aimed towards one or multiple “players”. These Activities can be explored in a solo self-paced learning fashion that can suit any schedule.

1. Soft Skills in job search and upgrade –
Because degrees are not enough
“Soft skills get little respect but they will make or break your career” – Peggy
Klaus, author
What are soft skills?
The financial crisis of the last 15 years, along with the ongoing coronavirus
pandemic, have turned job finding into a.. tough nut to crack, by implementing
more and more obstacles.
At the same time, the ever increasing level of academic certification of job
candidates, creates a highly competitive environment which demands,
especially from young people, constant alert and knowledge update.
A valuable ally to this could be no other than the development of their skills.
We should mention at this point that while the term “skills” usually refers to high
specialization capabilities that are obtained through professional training,

2. this definition is actually named “hard skills” and corresponds to only a fraction
of the skills spectrum.
The other part, the so called “soft skills”, refers to inherit personality details,
which cannot be taught in an academic setting.
The See First project
The European Union, in the context of its Erasmus+ initiative, co-funded a free
educational project called See First that aims to strengthen its learners’ soft
skills, aiming in this way for them to strike a job more easily or upgrade
professionally.
The project is labelled “free” since all of its content and material is
absolutely free of charge for any person interested to read, use and
download, with no exceptions.
Its target groups that can benefit are:
 Youngsters aged 18-30
 Recent higher education graduates
 Job seekers
 Those that wish to upgrade professionally
 Educators
 Career coaches
The soft skills upgrade is achieved through game like practical exercises
(“Activities”) that are aimed towards one or multiple “players”.
These Activities can be explored in a solo self-paced learning fashion that can
suit any schedule.
The whole educational material of the project is hosted on www.seefirst.eu , a
learning platform designed especially for See First that is available in English,
Italian, Spanish and Greek.
The platform also offers the ability to register and therefore keep track of your
progress.

4. After signing up, the learner can do the following:
1) A self-reflection quiz that examines your current soft skills level by
having you answer whether you agree with a series of statements related
to a variety of soft skills.
After its completion, you come up with an analysis of which are your
stronger and weaker soft skills.

5. 2) The Skills Wheel which enlists the 9 soft skills on which the project
focuses, grouped in 3 bigger groups.
3) By clicking on a certain soft skill, you come up with a list of Activities that
aim at strengthening it.

6. Each Activity contains instructions on how to execute it, its duration,
number of learners/players, and professional sectors on which it can
prove useful.

8. Finally, you answer at a set of self-assessment questions regarding what
you have learnt through each set of activities which, if answered correctly,
will provide you with the badge of a certain soft skill.

9. 4) The platform has a badge system where you receive a badge for each
soft skill that you successfully upgraded through answering its self-
assessment questions and implementing its activities.
After you have collected all of them, you get the See First badge which
indicates that you have finished the whole course of the project.

10. The soft skills enhanced
After an extended survey on business executives, HR managers and company
trainers in Greece, Cyprus Italy, Spain and the UK, we came up with those soft
skills that, according to these experts, are the most crucial for finding and
maintaining a job.
These are the 9 skills that See First focuses on, and are grouped in 3 categories:
Communication
Active Listening
Active listening is a technique of careful listening and observation of non-verbal
cues, with feedback in the form of accurate paraphrasing, that is used in
counseling, training, and solving disputes or conflicts. Active Listening requires
the listener to pay attention, understand, respond and remember what is being
said in the context of intonation, timing, and non-verbal cues (body language).
Negotiation
A negotiation is a strategic discussion that resolves an issue in a way that both
parties find acceptable. In a negotiation, each party tries to persuade the other
to agree with his or her point of view. By negotiating, all involved parties try to
avoid arguing but agree to reach some form of compromise.
Verbal Communication
Verbal communication refers to the production of spoken language, the use
of words, in order to share information, to pass a message to other people. It
can be both spoken and written but many people use it only for spoken
communication. Moreover, it is fundamental to keep in mind that is a two-way
process, as it is about passing information from one person to another. In
other words, sending (by a speaker) and receiving (by a listener) a message is
equally important.
Teamwork
Collaboration

11. Collaboration is a working practice whereby individuals work together for a
common purpose to achieve business benefit. Collaboration enables
individuals to work together to achieve a defined and common business
purpose.
Reliability
Reliability is defined as the probability that a product, system, or service will
perform its intended function adequately for a specified period of time, or will
operate in a defined environment without failure.
Respectfulness
1 : a relation or reference to a particular thing or situation remarks having
respect to an earlier plan. 2 : an act of giving particular attention :
consideration. 3a : high or special regard : esteem. b : the quality or state of
being esteemed.
Problem Solving
Attention to Detail
Also called thoroughness in accomplishing a task through concern for all the
areas involved, no matter how small. Monitors and checks work or information
and plans and organizes time and resources efficiently. Key Words: Quality
Assurance, Thoroughness, Efficiency.
Decision Making
Decision making is the process of making choices by identifying a decision,
gathering information, and assessing alternative resolutions. Using a step-by-
step decision-making process can help you make more deliberate, thoughtful
decisions by organizing relevant information and defining alternatives.
Logical Thinking
Logical thinking can also be defined as the act of analysing a situation and
coming up with a sensible solution. It is similar to critical thinking. Logical
thinking uses reasoning skills to objectively study any problem, which helps
make a rational conclusion about how to proceed. For example, you are facing
a problem in the office, to address that, you use the available facts, you are
using logical reasoning skills.