Knowledge Counts: Soft Skills with Milan Niksic, Civil Engineering Instructor at SAIT Polytechnic

During this episode of “Knowledge Counts”, Wendy and her guest, Milan Niksic, discuss why possessing strong soft skills is just as, or perhaps more, important than some hard skills. Even though soft skills are not directly relevant to a job such as having a fundamental understanding of budgeting project for a quantity surveyor, without strong communications skills, it can be difficult to make a successful pitch to the company decision makers. Milan discusses various reasons why a company or manager take a person’s soft skills into consideration, such as making sure their personality, attitude and manners are a good fit for the company and/or team’s culture. • Host: Wendy Hobbs, PQS(F) • Guest: Milan Niksic, PQS • Producer: Ryan Schriml Milan Niksic, Civil Engineering Instructor at SAIT Polytechnic Milan Niksic has worked for local and general contractors for close to 30 years. He holds a Master’s degree from Bath University in the UK, an engineering diploma from the SAIT Civil Engineering program and holds the Professional Quantity Surveyor (PQS) designation from CIQS. As he progressed through his career as an estimator and project coordinator, he settled into a chief estimator position within five years. He has worked for several large general contracting companies on projects across Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, and worked in director and vice president positions for a developer and manager of pre-construction services. In 2007, Milan accepted a teaching position in the SAIT Civil Engineering Technology program that he graduated from. He feels fortunate for the opportunities he has enjoyed in the industry, the people he has worked with and the individuals he has taught over the years. For complete show notes, go to https://ciqs.org/podcast.