What do writers bring to the table?

If you're wondering whether or not to hire a freelance writer, think about this -- English majors (i.e. most writers) bring with them more than just writing skills. Liberal arts degrees provide critical "human skills" that allow them to adapt to a variety of industries.

According to a 2018 report by researchers at Strada Education Network and Emsi, a labor market analytics firm, humanities majors have many of the "soft skills" companies are looking for.

“People coming from a liberal arts program who possess good human skills that translate to a variety of jobs are appealing because they are already good thinkers, and can be trained vertically on say, social media or programming,” says Rob Sentz, chief innovation officer at Emsi and one of the authors of the report.

Majorly multi-talented

From my own experience as an English major, I know we possess many traits normally associated with more "practical" majors, such as business, including:

• Critical Thinking Skills (from all those books we’ve analyzed and essays we’ve had to write!)

• Creative Problem Solving (character development, plotting, need I say more?)

• Conflict Resolution (have you ever listened to a group of people critiquing a short story? It takes diplomacy to be a writer!)

• Interpersonal Communication (again, short story critiques)

• Relating to Diverse Groups of People

• Written Communication

• Oral communication (giving presentations, teaching, critiques...)

• Research and Active Listening

• Teamwork and Working Individually

• Discipline and Juggling Multiple Projects (this applies especially to graduate school!)

• Organization and Planning

• Passion for Learning

English majors are trained to gather information, analyze it, and communicate it back clearly to the reader. Most of us love learning, so delving into a new topic -- no matter how obscure -- is a challenge we eagerly take on. So, whether you need a blog writer or copywriter to create ads, a well trained writer will be able to handle just about any topic you throw at them!