The Hard HR Challenge - Soft skills
The demand for top-tier candidates has never been higher. Companies are aggressively looking to hire the best and brightest to fill challenging roles across avariety of disciplines, from product development to customer service. However, one vexing problem persists — how can employers better assess essential soft skills for job success? It is one aspect to identify the technical abilities a particular position may require; it is quite another to measure an individual’s alignment with organizational culture and grasp of critical interpersonal skills that lay the foundation for effective leadership. This blog post explores this growing challenge and provides insights on potential solutions.
As the work place advances socially and technologically, soft skills - such as communication, problem-solving, collaboration and organization – which were once considered nice to have are now becoming essential for success in this new environment. Unfortunately, there is currently a noticeable gap with this skillset. Companies must therefore work harder than ever before to recruit candidates who possess both technical know-how AND soft skill ability to meet their needs going forward into an uncertain future!
Academics, IQ and Communication skills
Companies today are exploring new paths of data-driven efficiency, but this isn't enoughto drive success. To standout in a dynamic market requires not only rigorous innovation, but also the cultivation and maintenance of interpersonal skills along with other soft skills.
According to corporate leaders, success is just not about intelligence but rather about a person's ability to relate to others. Currently, there is too much focus on academics and IQ. There should be an equal focus on EQ. Even in the current environment where machines and technology are disrupting the way business function and the way we communicate, a greater proportion of the value is still developed through human interaction and the capability to inspire others to move in a specific direction. As corporate cultures shift more towards problem-solving, the importance of having strong communication skills has become increasingly apparent .
Soft Skills Assessment
In this backdrop, the demand for soft skills is growing faster than the ability to recognize them. Companies have long used psychometric assessments, but cost and experience issues prevent these from becoming a larger-scale solution. Behavioral interviews can be time consuming and thus unviable on a large scale- leading to an ongoing disconnect between what's needed in the workforce and actual skill recognition efforts.
DataDriven Solutions
As the work place becomes increasingly dependent on strong soft skills, it is becoming more and more difficult to identify these invaluable skills when recruiting with the over-emphasis on IQ and academic qualifications. Talent acquisition problems as a result of this have reached a tipping point; now is the time to look at innovative ways to identify talented candidates with the appropriate cognitive abilities.
Virtual recruitment solution companies have developed Smart Data Analytics that can be used to not only identify suitable candidates based on their soft skills, but also track performance over time and recognize skill growth. Investing in smarter algorithmic recruitment solutions can reduce hiring costs, increase quality of hire and provide long-term benefits- making them an essential choice for organisations of any size.
By empowering hiring teams with holistic information about applicants, virtual recruitment solutions are indeed the way forward in addressing today’s talent acquisition challenges- so don’t wait any longer, take action today!
