The Most Important Dedication and Devotion Skills (With Examples)

After the investment of training workers, losing employees in a high-turnover environment can diminish productivity and efficiency as the cycle begins again and new employees have to go through the onboarding and training process before they’re able to pick up that slack left behind when their experienced predecessors moved on.

So, when given the choice between hiring a short-term employee who is fully devoted to the job or hiring a potential long-term employee who doesn’t seem to be motivated or dedicated, the devoted candidate is the one who will have the advantage.

As employers look to fill their job openings, critical soft skills are likely to catch their eye on a resume: dedication and devotion.

Key Takeaways:

• Dedication and devotion will nurture your work ethic and can make you stand out.

• Examples of dedication and devotion at the workplace include: proactively seeking out learning opportunities, working overtime, pitching solutions to help the company, assisting your team, maintaining a positive attitude, and punctuality.

• You can highlight your dedication and devotion by seeking out a letter of recommendation.

Examples of Dedication and Devotion in the Workplace

Being dedicated to your work doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re planning to stick around and make a lifelong career there. Seasonal employees, such as teachers looking for work in the summer or agricultural workers supplementing their income in the winter, can be just as devoted to the job in the short time they’re employed as full-time workers are.

It all comes down to work ethics and performance. Whether you’re working at a temporary job, a full-time career gig, or an “I’ll have to wait and see how this plays out” kind of job, there are solid skills that you can add to your resume and practice at work to get your employer’s attention (in a good way).

• Proactively seek out learning opportunities. Showing a hunger to keep expanding your knowledge indicates that you are devoted to doing the job as well as you possibly can. It also shows that you care about your personal growth as well as the company’s success.

  Examples of proactive learning include asking questions both within your department as well as other departments, signing up for online course and seminars, keeping up-to-date with changes in your field, working toward a certification or award, volunteering to assist with other projects outside of your normal scope to get more hands-on experience, etc.

• Work overtime. While it’s not always the most fun way to spend your time, it does show your boss that you are a go-getter ready to put in the extra hours. Nothing shows devotion to your job quite like dedicating your time to it.

  Keep in mind that some employers don’t allow overtime unless a big project or deadline is coming up, and you also don’t want to burn yourself out too quickly by completely surrendering your work-life balance.

  Examples of working overtime include arriving to work early, staying after hours, or being on-call 24/7 for emergencies or after-hour inquiries from clients.

• Pitch solutions to help the company. Non-engaged and actively disengaged employees are content to punch in, do the minimum amount of work expected of them while counting the minutes to the end of the day, then punch out.

  They may notice inefficient practices, but they just don’t care enough to get involved. As far as they’re concerned, those problems are above their pay grade.

  Even if you aren’t in a supervisory or managerial position, you can show off your problem-solving skills by taking note of issues in the workplace and proposing solutions to fix them. This extra measure goes a long way to show your dedication.

  If you end up leaving the job, citing specific examples of how you improved your last company’s efficiency is a phenomenal highlight on your resume.

• Assist your team. As the saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work.” Companies aren’t successful on the back of a single employee; it’s a joint effort to get things done, and by investing your time and skills into helping your coworkers succeed, you’re proving your devotion to the company’s overall success.

  Examples of assisting your team include volunteering to train new employees, helping a colleague complete a big project to meet a deadline, sharing a helpful resource you found, etc.

• Maintain a positive attitude. When you’re happy and dedicated, it shows. Focusing on the positives can inspire your fellow colleagues to do the same, and it goes a long way when it comes to impressing customers. Positivity is a key trait in employees who are highly motivated to set and reach goals.

  Examples of staying positive include refraining from speaking negatively about your company, coworkers, and customers; confronting challenges with an “I can do this” attitude; leaving personal grievances at the door and adopting a professional demeanor when arriving at work; maintaining a calm, patient, cheerful persona with customers who are upset, etc.

• Be punctual. Simply clocking in on time says a lot about a person. It shows consideration for your employer and coworkers and lets them know that you value their time in addition to your own.

  Punctuality also demonstrates other soft skills in your repertoires, such as time management, organizational habits (you probably aren’t consistently on time if you’re always losing your keys and forgetting to grab your lunch), and the ability to plan by being prepared for bad weather or construction delays, among other skills that are valuable to an employer.

How to Showcase Your Dedication When Applying for a New Job

Bullet points on a resume are fine and dandy, but they’re better suited to your hard skills and don’t capture the depth of your soft skills quite as well. The best way to show off your soft skills is to provide specific examples of how you implemented them in a work environment.

• On a resume.

  Your job application will be much more impactful if instead of just listing “Problem Solving” as a skill, you briefly explain how you noticed employees were wasting time filling out the same information on three different forms, so you approached the manager and proposed using only one form, effectively saving paper (and therefore money in office supplies) while cutting time on the task by two-thirds for every employee.

• In your cover letter.

  Keep in mind that the resume has limited space, so you might have more room to talk about your soft skills, including your dedication and devotion to work, in the cover letter instead. Put care and thought into writing a short biography to make sure you cover the most important points.

• Solicit a letter of reccomendation.

  Another great option to prove you are a devoted employee is to seek out the testimony of a qualified professional who can vouch for you in the form of a recommendation letter. Whether you’re looking for a new job or seeking a promotion in your current one, the right words from the right person can help you get noticed.

• At the job interview.

  When preparing for your interview, write down specific examples of instances where your soft skills made an impact at your workplace. You may not have the opportunity to talk about every single experience, but having a list on hand will help you keep your thoughts organized so you can hopefully find a way to work some of the examples into your answers.

What Are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are interpersonal skills that range from personality, to work ethics, to social skills and character traits. Hard skills, by contrast, are technical and require training of some sort, such as computer programming or web design.

While both types of skill sets are important, listing the right soft skills on your resume can give you an edge over a competitor who might be equally qualified in hard skills and experience but lack certain character qualities that make you the stronger candidate.

Some of the most critical soft skills employers are looking for include:

• Written and verbal communication

• Teamwork

• Problem-solving

• Analytical skills

• Self-determination

• Time management

• Critical thinking

• Decision-making

• Organization

• Stress management

• Adaptability

• Research skills

• Work ethic

• Conflict resolution

• Flexibility

• Leadership

• Creativity

• Integrity

• Resourcefulness

• Persuasion

• Positivity

• Humbleness

• Openness to criticism

The development of these valuable soft skills often goes hand in hand with an employee’s level of commitment and devotion to the job.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is a skill of dedication?

Dedication is a consistent feeling of loyalty and support to a person, organization, or idea. Dedication in the workplace means an employee will have a strong work ethic and seek to improve both themselves and the organization around them because they feel strongly connected to their work environment.

2. Why is dedication an important skill?

Dedication is an important skill because it helps nurture your work ethic and can lead to success. By being dedicated to yourself and your work, you open up opportunities for growth and advancement. This can come in the form of raises, promotions, or new job opportunities entirely.

3. What is dedication and devotion towards work?

Dedication and devotion towards work is when you seek the best results from your labor. This includes not only working hard for yourself, but working for others around you as you seek to lift your organization to its highest potential.

Final Thoughts

Dedication brings value, and there are many creative ways for you to both incorporate dedication into your work and also utilize evidence of it when applying for a job to demonstrate what kind of employee you are — and why an employer would be wise to take a chance on you.

Whether you’re a chronic job-hopper or you’re looking to settle down into a lifelong career, putting genuine effort and care into your work is going to help you find success in whatever you do.

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.