Discussing Soft Skills might Lead to being Overlooked, Focusing on Hard Skills Increases Hiring Probability
Pamela Skillings, co-founder of Big Interview, a training system that has assisted millions in acing their interviews and securing high-profile job offers.
You've likely heard this advice in job interviews: Emphasize your soft skills since employers place a high value on them. (After all, most "About us" sections instruct you to thoroughly research topics like teamwork, communication, accountability, and innovation.)
While focusing on soft skills may help you deliver a decent interview performance, avoiding catastrophic failures (like frozen silence or nervous stuttering), it will not result in an extraordinary performance. If you aim to stand out, put your focus on your hard skills.
The Main Issue with Soft Skills
There's a reason for the job posting, and it boils down to this: Employers anticipate hiring someone who will generate or save the company more money than the cost of hiring them. Employers are interested in tangible evidence of your abilities, which is why it's challenging to make a convincing argument that your soft skills will translate into business results.
Explaining your resilience and adaptability is like trying to grasp a cloud, as soft skills are not quantifiable. Therefore, achievements like resilience and adaptability blend into the background noise of common interview scenarios.
The Limitations of Soft Skills: Behavioral Questions
During interviews, many individuals provide answers centered around soft skills, particularly in response to behavioral or situational questions. However, these types of questions mostly require STAR (situation, task, action, result) answers and quantifiable results. By delivering quantifiable results, you will distinguish yourself from other candidates and demonstrate your preparedness.
Let me demonstrate this using an example. A candidate is asked to "describe a difficult situation you faced at work and explain how you handled it."
Most people offer responses such as:
"When a team was overwhelmed by a major project with a tight deadline, I took charge by improving communication through organized team meetings, ensuring everyone was on the same page. By fostering an open environment and encouraging collaboration, I motivated the team. We completed the project on time, demonstrating adaptability and resilience in managing stress."
This response is adequate, but where is the impact? You mentioned communication and motivation, but how did those skills impact the outcome? It's unclear whether your actions made any significant difference.
On the other hand, exceptional candidates would share examples like:
"While dealing with a budgeting issue, I created a simple JavaScript script for Google Sheets to develop a financial model that helped reduce unnecessary expenses by 20%."
Which candidate would you be more likely to hire?
Soft Skills Won't Enhance Your Stories
We've all heard that "to deliver a remarkable interview performance, you need to tell captivating stories." And this is another area where overemphasizing soft skills could lead to mistakes. You may tell stories, but they'll lack drama, the storyline may not be engaging, and the climax might be missed entirely by the interviewers.
In contrast, candidates who focus on providing concrete examples of how they utilized hard skills to address real challenges create compelling stories. Statistical data and consequences result in unforgettable narratives because they are factual and impactful. Envision a candidate who, instead of stating they are "a team player," shares how their data analysis skills saved the company $100,000 in the last quarter by identifying inefficiencies. Such candidates are rare, which is why they are unforgettable.
Hard Skills are Valuable because Many Candidates are Modest
Let me put it into perspective using a personal anecdote. One of my favorite interview questions is, "What new skills have you developed in the last 12 to 24 months?"
This is a diagnostic test that reveals your commitment to honing hard skills beyond formal education. The majority of candidates fail miserably, instead choosing to discuss non-relevant soft skills or improvements to their time management or resilience. Although these skills are valuable, they are seldom distinctive.
In contrast, an exceptional candidate once shared with me their experience in completing an advanced machine learning course, resulting in the development of a predictive model that increased operational efficiency. They focused on a specialized, technical skill with a clear outcome, demonstrating dedication to growth, readiness to achieve measurable results, and the ability to apply new knowledge to their work. This captivating story captured my attention from start to finish.
Skills development should never be passive. Employers seek enthusiastic, lifelong learners. Inefficient learning practices lead to stagnant careers. Potential may get you the initial interview, but concrete results get you hired.
Are Soft Skills Irrelevant, Then?
Certainly not. Social interactions in professional environments would lack significance without an adequate set of soft skills.
However, without employing hard skills as a foundation, soft skills are like a ship without an anchor. Without ropes, a ship drifts in the wind. Your soft skills should complement your hard skills, serving as a foundation rather than a life raft.
• Whenever feasible, use actual figures and facts to showcase how these abilities have led to beneficial outcomes. If you're not aware of specific numbers, ranges and approximations will also work.
• Set aside time for self-improvement. Technology continues to advance, so should you.
• Register for classes, attend seminars, and strive for accreditations. Take the initiative in your education.
During your next job interview, instead of deflecting challenging questions with abstract traits like adaptability or determination, prove how your professional arsenal prepared you for success.
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