I learned a ton at STLDODN this year. The conference name is changing for next year. It will be called DevUp. Not sure if it will be just that name or StlDevUp .. either one is cool by me. It’s a great conference and the fact the name is changing to make the conference a ‘developer conference’ instead of implying it’s just for .NET folks is just great. Good move.
There are lots of extra topics to be had each year. One thing I saw a good bit of this year were sessions on ‘Soft Skills’. It’s suprising to me (and encouraging) to see how many IT folks attended the sessions on topics like Soft Skills.
I’m excited about it and have decided to start including some writing about the topic on here from time to time.
So let me leave you with this.
A person can walk into an interview being a total rock star with their technical skills and totally bomb it, missing perhaps a job of their dreams because they can’t communicate effectively. Conversely, a person who can communicate well or present themselves well who is actually less technical (and still qualified for the job of course) will likely walk out of their interview with an offer and a start date.
Technical skills look great on the resume but Soft Skills win jobs.