Employers look for certain unique soft skills in new hires

Employers of labour are looking beyond core, technical or hard professional skills to soft skills, those human interpersonal skills around communication and empathy.

Statistics have shown that sub-Saharan Africa’s demographic explosion (from 430 million to over a billion working-age people over the next 40 years) will make Africa the largest labour market in the world. This creates unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the region.

Opportunities that will be missed if the working population lacks the skills to contribute positively to organisations they work in, either as employees or entrepreneurs. These skills significantly include soft skills.

Awotokun Aworanti, former registrar/chief executive of the National Business and Technical Examinations Board, Nigeria, stated in a research paper that the vigorous pursuit of reforms in education by African nations is a reflection of the implicit confidence policy makers have in its potency as a development strategy.

Within this context, assessment has focused on technical and administrative skills otherwise called hard skills. These skills are claimed to contribute about 15 percent of success in vocations as against soft skills which contribute substantially about 85 percent, as employee successful performance is at the core of organisational goal attainment and considering the role of soft skills therein, assessment of soft skills in public examinations needs to be integrated.

An economic research commissioned by McDonald’s at the start of 2015 showed that soft skills contributed £88 billion to the United Kingdom economy, a contribution that is expected to rise to £109 billion over the next three years. But the UK is struggling with them, and by 2020 over half a million UK workers will be significantly held back by a lack of such skills.

Ninety-seven percent of employers according to the research said they believed that soft skills were important to their current business success, while over half said skills like communication and teamwork were more important than academic results. Yet three-quarters of them believed there was a ‘gap’ of such skills in the UK workforce. Industry sectors most at risk were identified as accommodation, food services, retail and healthcare.

The Multi-Generational Job Search Study 2014 by Millennial Branding said employers ranked the following as the most highly desired qualities in candidates: communication skills, a positive attitude and the ability to work in a team, all of which can be labeled soft skills or emotional intelligence.

Hard skills, on the other hand, are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easy to quantify, such as a proficiency in a foreign language or computer programming. While hard skills might be developed on the job, employees should come to an organisation already in possession of soft skills. When employees lack these basic soft skills, it can hurt the overall success of the organisation.

The soft skills that employers are seeking, according to CareerBuilder, Millennial Branding and others, include the following but not exhaustive:

Being dependable; employers value workers they can rely on to get the job done. There’s nothing better than an employee who is available at the drop of a dime, arrives to work on time and delivers quality results.

During the interview process, hiring managers should ask candidates about their work ethic. Dependable employees are individuals who meet deadlines, are team players and stay focused at work.

Being creative and innovative; whether the employee is an accountant or art director, creativity is what sparks change in the workplace.

During an interview, the hiring manager should ask the candidate about a time when he or she was assigned a new project. The candidate should respond highlighting personal examples of thinking outside of the box to achieve results.

Taking initiative; an employee demonstrates initiative by coming up with an idea and putting it into action.

For example, an employee might develop an idea for social-media marketing campaign that will build awareness for the organization.

After a company hires an employee, managers will want to gauge whether the employee will follow through in exhibiting soft skills. Some HR technology products let employers detect who has certain skills on the job. Talentoday is a skills assessment platform that helps employers measure soft skills and personalities through a variety of tests.

Pulling together a presentation; regardless of their position, most employees are expected to make presentations to management, co-workers, customers and clients in some fashion.

For example, an in-house graphic designer might receive an email from the head of the marketing department about a new client. Although this employee isn’t a communications professional, she might be asked to pull together branding ideas in a presentation for the client.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU