Hard skills will get you the interview – soft skills will get you the job. While this aphorism holds true, understanding the best soft skills to bring into your organisation will help you achieve long-term success.
While specialised knowledge and hard skills are essential to create an efficient, qualified workforce, it’s soft skills that will determine how your people will handle problems, communicate with colleagues and client, and respond to different business situations. Soft skills are often the deciding factor if you’re struggling to differentiate between top candidates with the same hard skill sets.
SHRM shared expertise from five security industry recruiters to decipher which soft skills are the most crucial for today’s market. Here’s what they said:
Communication
Communication is seen as the foundation of every other soft skill. Why? Because communication is the “umbrella” which covers other skills such as “speaking, active listening skills, presentation skills and more.”
It provides the foundation for relationships between employees and their senior team members. Managers should be able to communicate effectively with their team members about tasks, improvements and when providing praise.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (often abbreviated to EQ) is the ability to understand the reactions and perspectives of others, and handle this with empathy.
“Besides communication skills, emotional intelligence has become an important attribute for candidates in the current job market.”
Today, more organisations are looking for people with EQ skills. This includes the ability to work within a team, the ability to motivate and persuade, empathetic listening and building consciousness.
You can determine whether someone has high EQ abilities by the way they present themselves during interviews and the way they demonstrate their value.
“They’re not just leaning on their laurels. They have actively done the research on the company, and so they can give examples of potential contributions that are directly relevant… They are making really good impressions.”
The ability to question assumptions
This skill is subtle, yet valuable. The ability to questions assumptions is often lacking in many managers as the technological upgrades of today’s world has made traditional ways of problem-solving more redundant.
‘”There is a key subtle difference in the ability to identify a challenge without assuming that it can be solved the same way it was a year or two ago.”
Someone who is skilled at questioning assumptions will consistently question how decisions are reached without straying from standards and regulatory requirements.
Different soft skills working in harmony
“Managers who can survive, and even thrive, in this environment usually combine communication skills with the ability to work under pressure, a knack for troubleshooting, and an insistence on maintaining integrity and a code of ethics so no corners are cut.”
While the combination of soft skills required for the role is often dependant on the circumstances surrounding the position, it is important that the candidate can demonstrate they have the ability to use these skills; even if the use of these skills in harmony would need to develop within the role over time.
Organisations and their cultures are unique. Be mindful that it can be challenging for candidates to take their soft skills and apply it to a new organisational context immediately. Making a new hire comes down to solving an organisational challenge in one way or another. What matters is whether you can see the candidate being able to use their hard and soft skills to be able to solve these challenges.
Source
The hard truth about soft skills
Mark Tarallo
SHRM
We’d love to hear your thoughts! What other soft skills do you think are crucial in today’s market? Leave a comment below and share the article on social to continue the conversation.
Nikita Thorne is an Oxford-based digital marketer and writer. After completing a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Film & Theatre from the University of Reading followed by a six-month internship in marketing, Nikita has been travelling the world.
While temping as a Content Producer at Employment Office in Brisbane, she gained expertise in recruitment marketing, writing articles and coordinating webinars on multiple recruitment marketing subjects.