It’s all in the attitude: The importance of soft skills in the workplace when talent sourcing
In recent years a paradigm shift has been taking place in the recruitment world and it pertains to how employers are hiring. The old-hat approach of simply screening candidates for skills and experience is rapidly becoming outdated.
But what’s now in favour?
Hiring for potential.
That’s right – recruiters are now starting to eye candidates with the key baseline competencies as well as the capacity to be quickly trained in what’s missing. But more importantly, good soft skills in the workplace, such as communication, listening, positivity, work ethic and empathy will be taking centre stage.
The elusive ‘perfect’ candidate
As much as job seekers strive to find the perfect role to suit their aspirations, recruiters are similarly looking for the ideal candidate to align with their organisational goals.
Though as the war for talent wages on, particularly for high-skilled workers, more employers are acknowledging that chasing the dream of a ‘perfect’ candidate is, in fact, hindering their ability to attract the candidates with the most future potential. A realisation of which can prove both liberating and may pave the way for even more successful business growth.
If this rechannelling of efforts may sound a little risky when it comes to sourcing top talent, let’s not forget that soft skills are personality-driven and can often be the difference between a good candidate and a great candidate.
Besides, hard skills (both tangible and technical) can, in most circumstances, be taught, though on the other hand, teaching someone a soft skill such as empathy can be nigh on impossible.
Striking a balance - hard skills vs. soft skills
A recent global LinkedIn talent report highlighted that 92% of recruitment professionals believed soft skills to be equally, if not more important to hire for than hard skills. 89% of those surveyed also noted that when a new hire doesn’t work out, it’s often due to a lack of critical soft skills.
Technological advances are rapidly changing ways of working within numerous industries, leaving employees needing to continuously retool. This means that the demand for candidates with transferable and future-proof skills is also on the rise.
But the magic recipe for attracting the candidates with the most potential needn’t be complicated. There is a way to get the best of all worlds.
As a starting point, consider your candidate ‘must-haves’. This will likely include the necessary hard skills – the specific knowledge and abilities required for employees to hit the ground running in their new role. Though, just as crucially, add into the mix the various soft skills required along with any transferable competencies (critical thinking, problem-solving, cognitive flexibility etc.).
This list of ‘must-haves’ should be relatively succinct, allowing you to then look at whether a candidate has a proven readiness and learnability – a strong indicator for future potential. And remember, if a candidate is a great match soft-skills wise, this may outweigh those missing hard skills that are more easily taught.
By hiring candidates with an optimal skills mix, not only is the likelihood of them being a great organisational fit much higher, but they’ll also be major contenders when it comes to adapting in the ever-changing technological world. All the more reason why soft skills are important in the workplace.
How to identify soft skills and what this means for the talent acquisition process
As priorities begin to change; with the focus on attracting and retaining candidates with a diverse, flexible and adaptable skillset, so too must the hiring process to facilitate this.
Much of this begins with the humble CV, which is also undergoing quite an overhaul. In the new digital age, candidates are making more use of both social media and video CV submissions to apply for roles, creating an accurate and more powerful first impression, particularly when it comes to personality. Digital portfolios make for far easier evaluation of soft skills for hiring staff, and thus a candidate’s suitability for a role.
How employers screen candidates will also see a transition. Whilst hard skills are easily proven, soft skills are subjective and can be much more difficult to assess, challenging recruiters to think differently about how they uncover the strengths and weaknesses of applicants. This, however, can be supported with an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), that incorporates easily-configurable screening procedures allowing you to ask the right questions to candidates from the get-go.
Fast forward to your carefully selected candidate sitting in the hot seat with just one last chance to shine. Enable them to do so by changing up your interview process.
With shorter interviews that are more soft skills focussed, along with getting a greater sense of their personality, you’ll also be able to test a candidate’s ability to learn new skills, rather than simply assessing what they already know. Problem-solving interview scenarios can also be incorporated to help tease out their use of initiative and creativity. Just two more valuable character traits in a long list of highly sought-after soft skills.
A final tip - one sure-fire way recruiters can stay abreast of changing organisational skill requirements is by immersing themselves in emerging business areas, to become more familiar with the evolving skill demands.
Armed with that knowledge, you should strongly consider making time to revisit your talent pools or that mounting stack of CVs. You may just be sitting on a soft skills goldmine!
Get in touch now to learn more about how the Access talent acquisition software can support in attracting those high-potential candidates.
