Communication Skills
What the exam tests
Communication Skills items cover the communication cycle, the 7Cs, verbal versus non-verbal channels, active listening, workplace writing (email, notice, report) and barriers. Expect one applied item where you must critique or rewrite a message.
Core rules
- Cycle: sender, encoding, message, channel, receiver, decoding, feedback. Feedback is the only proof the message landed; without it you have sent, not communicated.
- Verbal means words, spoken or written. Non-verbal covers tone, gesture, posture, eye contact and even email layout. Tone often decides how the words are read.
- 7Cs: clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete, courteous.
- Listening is active: attend, do not interrupt, paraphrase, question, confirm. Hearing is only passive reception of sound.
- Barriers: physical (noise, distance), semantic (jargon, poor translation), psychological (prejudice, stress, distrust), organisational (long chain of command, no channel).
- Channel choice: urgent and complex means face-to-face or a call; a record is needed, so email with a purposeful subject line; brief coordination, chat.
Worked example
Message: 'Send report ASAP.' Faults: no subject, no identity or context, vague deadline, no format or scope. Rewrite: subject 'Sales report, Zone 3 - needed by Friday 5 pm for board note'; body 'Hello Mr Patil, please send the Zone 3 sales report for April to June as an Excel file by Friday 5 pm. It feeds the board note, so include the dealer-wise breakup. Call me on the number below if any column is unclear. R. Deshmukh, Sales.' Each fault is closed by one added element, and that mapping is what earns the marks.
Marks-losing traps
- Writing that feedback is optional; it defines the cycle.
- Confusing concise with short at any cost; concise keeps every essential fact.
- Naming a barrier wrongly: jargon is semantic, not physical.
- Dropping courtesy when rewriting, especially the greeting and the closing.