Si lo miramos a simple vista, el mercado laboral luce oscuro y borrascoso. La desaceleración económica mundial causada por el coronavirus destruyó empleos y tambaleó la estabilidad de los que se creían intocables. Pero si lo analizamos más a fondo, esta tormenta financiera ha facilitado el florecimiento de una nueva manera de apreciar las habilidades de los aspirantes.
What serves a multinational hire a polyglot engineer with masters of the most prestigious universities if he is unable to collaborate as a team, communicate his ideas effectively or adapt to the challenge of working remotely without supervision or great resources at his disposal?
Pandemia has demonstrated, once again, that the limits of formal education and the importance of certain intangible resources that will differentiate you when you go out to look for work.
Soft skills are a set of characteristics desired by employers - who are not necessarily explicit in the description of the work but are fundamental to facilitate labor relations - because they allow us to solve problems creatively, have the emotional balance to be empathic,resolutions and handle stress.
They are transversal because they are not limited to the work environment but is a way of being that accompanies us in all the activities of our life.
Soft skills refer to non-cognitive skills that allow us to knowledge and relationship with others and with oneself, the efficient and creative resolution of problems, recognize and manage emotionally, consider objectives and plan to achieve them to achieve them
Your interviewer will want to know if it will be easy to work with you for eight hours at least five days a week, if you will get along with your classmates, if you can trust you, if you are honest, patient and maintain a positive attitude in the moments of difficulty.
Hard skills can be quantified and demonstrated and the recruiter can read them on your resume.Your university titles, your language certificates, academic courses that check your computer skills or in the area of your competition.And it is not about subtracting importance, because these are the basic requirements to perform a professional task.
But at least 50% of any work interview will concentrate on interpersonal skills such as creativity, flexibility, if your profile fits corporate culture and if you are the right person to improve the performance of equipment that is already integrated.
It is an ancient concept that has resumed value.The American engineer Charles Riborg Mann published more than 100 years ago a study on engineering education, which revealed that 85% of job success comes from well -developed soft skills, while only 15% is the product of general knowledge and technical.
Soft skills that are essential to succeed in your business or work in a large company are:
Working as a team: seven out of 10 companies consider that knowing how to collaborate collectively is fundamental.If you are an employee you have to contribute prioritizing the common objective over staff.And as a leader we must accept and enhance the individual differences of each member, in addition to knowing how to delegate and guide.Individualist attitudes will only stagnate you.
Adaptation to change: companies need flexible and realistic collaborators, capable of becoming in the middle of a crisis and responding without complaints or hesitation.The disposition to adapt to the changing circumstances of the environment has been basic to subsist in the work world after pandemic.
Communication: The ability to communicate effectively at all levels has regained relevance.It is important that you know how to express yourself correctly in writing, but it is also key that you are able to speak in public without boring.And you cannot forget the digital communication skills: you have to be able to communicate clearly by the technological platforms that facilitate workflows, produce and raise digital content, quickly and clean and cleanly.
EMPATHY: Companies that promote heartless competition between their workforce lose competitiveness because their members are fighting each other instead of collaborating to reach common goals.That is why they now look for people with good interpersonal capabilities, who know how to put themselves in the shoes of their classmates, who are able to stop for a moment and show solidarity in a moment of difficulty.Nobody wants an expert near you can stab you from behind.
Efficiency and time management: If you want to be a good worker you have to learn to be organized and plan your time.But if the plans change in the middle of a crisis, you have to maintain the focus on what contributes more value.Companies no longer want a worker to remain attached to a desk for 15 hours a day to finish their tasks.They prefer those who manage their time in a more balanced way and achieve their objectives without harming their health or personal relationships.
Creativity and innovation: to be creative you do not have to be a painter or a writer, but you have to have the ability to use knowledge and rules established to generate solutions that nobody had thought.There are those who believe that creativity is an innate quality, but in reality it is a skill that can be acquired by trying to solve riddles, create systems or try to do things in a different way.Innovation and creative thinking is what the technology industry has transformed in the last 50 years.
Emotional Intelligence: Some consider it the basis of all soft skills because it is the ability to identify and manage their own and others' emotions to achieve common goals.Emotionally intelligent people know how to communicate their discomfort without aggressiveness, they are able to understand their classmates' feelings and properly manage conflicts.
Labor ethics: transparency, responsibility, initiative, the ability to recognize errors, punctuality, constancy are skills that have little to do with the technical knowledge of a career and much with a professional attitude towards work.Honesty, loyalty, proactivity are soft skills like gold by human resources departments today.
Sources: Culture Culture, Adecco, LinkedIn, Human Capital Factor.
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