How to upskill: The importance of soft skills in recruiting

In the recruiting process, we often stress hard, technical skills in our resumes — measurable assets or fields of study that are telling of our professional expertise and prowess. From the latest coding language to the latest Adobe Suite addition, the realization that those skills expire and become obsolete is unfortunate. Before you become discouraged, remember that those skills are highly necessary in today’s workplace, and taken in perspective with you as a person, are extremely valuable.

However, when the recruiting sphere becomes congested with over-performing applicants, how does the human resources sector determine which candidate is better equipped to bring the most merit to a company? It’s time for us to assess how talent can and should assimilate into the corporate’s work culture. Hard skills are an essential prerequisite for any hands-on profession, but only factor as a baseline — intersocial characteristics such as the eagerness to learn also play a pivotal role in a company’s recruitment and success.

According to HR Dive, 50% of MindEdge Learning’s second annual State of Critical Thinking survey respondents claim that soft skills, coined as our interpersonal “people oriented skills,” are equally as indispensable as hard skills in the work field. How we socialize and integrate ourselves into the office needs to be mirrored in the recruiting process — we need to redirect the hiring landscape to be centric to people, not postings.

Instead of thinking of soft skills as the stark opposite to traditional hard skills, we more so need to work in conjunction with and enhance the quantitative skills you have learned. While a job may entail implementing a hard skill toolkit, soft skills catalyzes synergistic environments, increases task productivity, helps you stay relevant and upskill and more importantly help you secure the job.

At the start of 2020, LinkedIn’s market research shared the top 5 soft skills of user profiles with the highest hired rate. From this list, we summarized, analyzed and interpreted these soft skills’ utility and focused on their place in the job hiring process beyond the customary endorsements from your previous employers on LinkedIn.

Creativity

The elusive skill everyone desires and claims to have. Whether artistic, organizational, or spontaneous, our creativity flourishes in the retrospective ways in which we brainstorm ideas; nobody wants to be the classic “in-the-box thinker.” As put by a blog by The Training Associates, creativity is “no longer a nice-to-have in the workplace” — it’s a necessity.

The importance of creativity in the workplace is a no brainer. Recruiters, whether for a 2-month-old tech startup, or a major conglomerate, are always looking for fresh perspectives and innovative remedies to spark corporate success. They want people who add to their diverse set of minds, invent new protocols, and prevent content staleness.

Without creativity steering us towards ingenious solutions, businesses become oversaturated and homogenous — standing out from the pool of ambitious startups and noteworthy global brands becomes much more ambiguous. To pursue an extensive consumer base or drive monthly sales, company recruiters are looking for bold and unorthodox ways of growth to trump its competition. While easier said than done, weaving originality into your work and project proposals will undeniably serve you well in any firm.

Persuasion

Whether you are a salesperson or an accountant, when it comes to getting the job, the first asset you need to know how to sell is yourself. Persuasion isn’t a magic spell you cast on your audience — it can be as simple as identifying what your forte is and relaying to recruiters specific scenarios where you were able to flourish in your niche. The nature of persuasion can be inadvertently polished by spotlighting what expertise and flair you can deliver to the company’s growth. Whether you have a keen eye for digital design composition or programming intricate website functionalities, knowing intuitively how and when to market your hard skill set must be complemented by this soft skill. Employing such an essential marketing maneuver when networking or interviewing is key, as the interactions between you and a recruiter are limited within a platform.

Collaboration

Proving that you are a collaborative individual when you yourself are just one person seems counterintuitive at best. However, there are a plethora of supplemental traits that enhance and endorse one’s collaborative nature — open-mindedness, curiosity, active listening are all soft skills you showcase by taking initiative and being a team player. To operate within a team, this is a key soft skill that recruiters are looking for, regardless of the position of interest you apply for.

Adaptability

The socio-economic climate, political landscape and hiring environment is ceaselessly changing — you should too. By proving to recruiters that you can effortlessly transition and readjust to unforeseen hurdles, you are able to bear a competitive edge and signify that you are open to change. Any curveball that might be thrown at you in the workplace can transform into a home run for you. Recruiters are looking for multidimensional problem solvers who can gauge alarming issues and make clever yet efficient compromises. With this readiness for change, you will be equipped to build up the company’s competitive footing to the next caliber.

Employers already value this trait, but it’s likely to become even more important in the future; in one survey, 91 percent of HR directors predicted that by 2018, the ability of a candidate to deal with change will be a major recruitment goal. If you want to gain a competitive edge and sell yourself as the most qualified and adept candidate, while also securing marketable skills for the future, start practicing adaptability.

Emotional Intelligence

According to Inc, emotional intelligence is “the ability to make emotions work for you, instead of against you.” As the newest in-demand soft skill in 2020, emotional intelligence allows us to intentionally manage and contain our sentiments with finesse. By recalibrating the conversation, we are able to make informed, socially conscious choices without the interference of emotionally spontaneous decision making.

With this, we can strengthen meaningful connections with our co-workers, as building relationships means you must be aware of both your own and others needs. Proving that you can recognize difficult situations and navigate through them smoothly, employees with emotional intelligence are more efficient, decisive and all in all easier to work with.

Beyond this top 5 list, there are countless other soft skills that are important and that recruiters gravitate towards, such as drive, initiative, dependability. All these traits accumulate to you and your ability to build interpersonal relationships. The bottom line is proving that you as an individual are ready to show to recruiters that you have both the technical expertise and the social skills, making you the most versatile job applicant.

However, our goal is to go beyond just the soft skills. Our goal at Enrole is to use the 25 second elevator pitch feature to showcase to recruiters who you are and your story — something your resume can’t tell. With these skills in mind, Enrole allows you to highlight your hard and soft skills to recruiters through a personality driven networking approach. Enrole users are able to bring a visionary yet self customized edge to the recruiting process by opening to the sphere of “what-ifs.” What if recruiters could assess an applicant’s persona, work morale and attributes beyond their one dimensional resume submissions? What if recruiters were able to holistically evaluate the candidate as a person, and not a posting? Then, companies will be able to choose the most fitting, well rounded candidate.

So, why should we wait until the interview to show personality and our soft skills? Let’s change the way we network and recruit.

Read this article on Medium.