Soft Skills Versus Hard Skills: What Matters More in Today’s Job Market?
When I started my career way back in 1966, I had no real idea where it was going to take me. In September 1983, I began my life as a Senior Management Trainee for the National Bus Company of Great Britain. It was a three-year training programme with only 12 people selected, virtually all men, and it was renowned for being a tough apprenticeship to complete, with less than half expected to finish it.
Every three months, we would all be assembled in central London, where an eight-man panel of senior leaders and directors would interview the hapless souls brought before them. They would study the three-month reports we had to submit, sharing what we had learned with the different teams and departments we had been allocated to. It was demanding and tough, and the view was that we were being groomed to be the next generation of leaders. Back then, it was a very male-dominated world, and virtually all of the leaders on the panel had served in the Second World War. In many ways, we were expected to be the officers of the future, which meant being able to show natural leadership and authority through example.
The Essential Blend: Why Both Hard and Soft Skills Are Crucial for Career Success
The skills we were taught were a blend of the hard skills that you needed to know and learnt through education and training, such as, in my case, learning to drive a bus. The assumption was that if you were going to be a leader of bus companies, then you really ought to understand what the job was all about. Little did I realise that my bus driving skills would end up being used to help build an HR company with my business partner, Andy Samu, in Poland, of all places. In truth, not in my wildest dreams did I ever think, when I was a trainee with the National Bus Company, that I would end up in Poland, but I am delighted that I have been so lucky to have lived this life. So, the focus through the training process was to see if you were tough enough to make tough decisions both professionally and personally. It was as much about developing the soft skills such as teamwork and communication.
My own take is simple: hard skills look good on paper, whereas soft skills really indicate which candidates are good in person. The truth is that you need a blend of both, so for me, they matter equally in today’s modern world. In many ways, soft skills are essential if you are a people person, as most HR people tend to be. You need to have empathy and, dare I say it, emotional intelligence, something that I have always placed very high on my list of personal skills. I have met and worked with some brilliant people, highly intelligent and super at their jobs, but they have no people skills at all. When it came to things like collaboration, time management, and problem-solving, they hadn’t got a clue. But that did not mean to say that they did not contribute a huge amount to the benefit of the company. As ever, as a leader, you always play people to their own strengths and capabilities. After all, why would you put Harry Kane in goal?
Why Emotional Intelligence and Empathy Are Key in Modern HR Management
One good example within the HR community is in client management, where the employee has to build up a great relationship with the client. It is as vital to have the relationship with the client as well as the product that you are selling to them. Bluntly, you can have the best product in the world, but if you do not have a people person to handhold the client, then the chances are that you will get nowhere. I have witnessed this myself, and it is tragic, really, because creating the best is the toughest bit, but it needs that „go-to” person to build the relationship with the client. We have worked really hard at Verita to create those teams, and they are integral to the company, as you need all the parts of the company jigsaw to fit harmoniously to create a climate that employees want to be a part of. If not, then you will notice that people will vote with their feet.
So, a simple answer to a simple question: both matter equally in today’s modern job market. Even the madness of the pandemic did not stop people wanting to communicate with each other through the community of Zoom. It is really interesting to see how the world of remote working has impacted the modern job market. Quite simply, some people love remote working and all that goes with it—no commuting or social mixing required. Others, on the other hand, crave the desire to be at the office and the structure that goes with it. Certainly, there is evidence that people living on their own enjoy the sense of social inclusion that they get from being around friends and fellow workers. I am not going to speculate on what sort of people like one or the other, but the bottom line is, at the end of the day, you need both.
Author: Austin Birks, CEO, Verita HR Group
