91% of Employers are Asking for Soft Skills So Make Sure You've Got Some on Your Development Plan

A mix of soft and hard skills is like catnip for managers

Imagine you're a manager and have to choose between two equally qualified applicants.

Applicant one is an expert at the technical aspect of the job (the work) but struggles to collaborate. Applicant two has strong interpersonal skills but lacks technical expertise in a few minor areas.

Who would you hire?

I'd hire the one with good interpersonal skills every time, because you can teach someone how to do the job, but you can't always teach people skills.

Plus, people without soft skills raise a lot of red flags in interviews.

• Will they cooperate and follow instructions?

• Will they cause trouble within the team?

• Will they embarrass me with their behavior?

I've sat in plenty of interviews where the applicants clearly lack people skills, and they don't fare well compared to their more emotionally intelligent rivals.

Good leaders know that team members who can do the work and work well with others are more likely to be productive and easier to manage. So that's who they hire and promote.

No experienced HR practitioner will hire someone who can't get on with their colleagues because they can visualize all the problems this candidate might cause and the effort and paperwork it will take to fix them.

If your soft skills need a refresh, the good news is that:

1. Your technical (hard) skills are still valuable

2. You can improve your soft skills if you are motivated to do so

Your ability to do the job might get you an interview, but your people skills will get you the job offer.

Here's why you need both and how to balance them:

Without hard skills, you won't even get to the interview

Technical skills will always be important because you need them to get an interview in the first place. Qualifications, experience, and the right job skills demonstrate competence.

That's just common sense.

But which hard skills do you need?

We all know that the rapid progression of AI and automation is replacing aspects of many roles, but I'm not a fan of shrieking that the sky is falling in because AI will take all our jobs.

I've seen too many jobs change rather than disappear to believe that machines will eventually take them all.

But to stay relevant, you must keep your hard skills up to date. Focus your attention on emerging or evergreen areas of your industry rather than on attaining skills that could soon become irrelevant.

Action points:

• Keep up with industry news and technical advances

• Focus your development on skills that will keep their value, and avoid any job skills that might become obsolete

• Use books, online courses, podcasts, and other means of self-study, as well as company-sponsored training, to keep up-to-date

Only humans need apply

We all start out on the bottom rung of the career ladder.

But the higher we climb, the more critical our soft skills become.

Why?

Because we are now responsible for other people's work as well as our own. If we can't communicate, lead a team, and show empathy, how can we ensure our team does a good job?

Granted, most people are self-motivated. However, a leader with no people skills will soon erode team enthusiasm.

I've worked with many new leaders who are shocked at how much of their time is spent sorting out problems that they view as 'fluffy'. Issues with toilets, car parking spaces, uniforms, equipment, leave, sickness, and stress are all important to team members, and dealing with these issues takes people skills.

In my years of managing engagement surveys, it was obvious that the leaders with people skills had the most engaged teams.

If you want a leadership role, people skills are non-negotiable (according to research, 91% of employers say that soft skills are as important as hard skills).

But what soft skills are these employers referring to?

It turns out they are:

• Communication - can you express yourself, get your point across, and listen effectively?

• Emotional intelligence - can you understand different perspectives?

• Leadership & Collaboration - Can you motivate your team, resolve conflicts, and work well with others?

This means that if you want to rise in your career, you'll need to make sure you're the candidate with the soft skills, not the one who has only the job skills.

Action point:

• Create a list of soft skills and make sure you know what they look like in practice (for example, what does a person do, say, and behave like when they are listening properly)

• Do a self-assessment and give yourself a rating from 1-10 for each soft skill

• Ask for feedback about your soft skills from colleagues, friends, and family

• Pick one soft skill to study and practice each quarter

Like the Three Bears porridge, your development plan must be just right

Hard skills get the job done, but soft skills help you excel and move up the career ladder, so which should you invest in?

The short answer is both, but it does depend on where you are in your career.

• Just starting out? - Focus on nailing down the hard skills but develop an awareness of what soft skills look like.

• Mid-career? - Make sure you're developing a balance of soft and hard skills - they are both equally important at this stage of your career.

• Senior professional or senior leader? - Soft skills drive your career more than hard skills.

If you have a career plan, you also need a development plan, and that plan needs both soft and hard skills to be effective.

Action point:

• Do a skills audit of both hard and soft skills

• Research how to get these skills

• Pick the most relevant skill from each area according to where you are in your career, and set it as your development goal for the next 3-6 months

Summary

To advance in your career, you need a combination of technical (hard) skills and soft (people) skills.

When you're starting out, hard skills are more important as you're learning how to do the job. For every step up the career ladder, you'll spend more time collaborating with colleagues and clients, increasing the need for people skills.

To keep current, regularly assess your hard and soft skills and plan your development to fill the gaps.

Remember to ask family, friends, and colleagues for feedback. It can be invaluable as you'll get a clearer picture of where you need the most training.

Once you've gained your new skills, make sure you practice them regularly so they become natural.

You need to practice soft skills as much as hard skills. If you feel like you've messed up, that's OK, we all do. Just make a note of what happened and think about how you can do better next time.

So, which skills will you work on next?

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