Why Employers Should Focus on Soft-Skills During the Hiring & Training Process

By Melita Wallace| November 2018

According to HR Drive, “The U.S. added 157,000 new jobs in August of 2018and the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, the lowest rate since 2000.” This means that across the nation, many employers will have to selectively hire candidates to fill all of these new positions and do their best to ensure that these new hires will be assets to their company rather than liabilities. With the job market being more competitive than ever, it’s important to know which qualities to look for in a job candidate. Company recruiters’ ability to discern which candidate is the best fit for the position can affect how competitive the company is in their industry.

During the interview process, it is important to look beyond the resume and to discover how each candidate will perform within the day-to-day duties of the position. By 2020, The World Economic Forum predicts that “Problem-solving and critical thinking skills will be the two most important skills to exhibit in the workplace.” These soft skills are said to be equally as important, and sometimes even more important than the hard skills that a degree can be proof of. Asking a series of behavioral questions to discover anecdotal evidence of how a candidate communicates and has performed in specific situations in their past, can provide insight into how much they have mastered (or failed to master) their problem solving and critical thinking abilities. Candidates that can exhibit these soft skills, among others, tend to be more collaborative, have a better work ethic, a more positive attitude and focus more on achieving desired outcomes and results. Choosing employees that have a combination of these valuable soft skills along with the hard skills that higher education offers, can create an unparalleled productivity in the workplace. This will ultimately lead to better business and higher revenues.

Beyond the hiring process, it’s equally as important to invest in your current employees to ensure that they have access to proper training. Soft skills aren’t skills that most employees have already mastered, but they definitely can be trained in these areas. Simply Success offers a variety of soft skills training courses and certifications. Training in these areas can enrich the careers of each of your employees by giving them transferable skills that are valuable in any and every industry and can enrich your business as a whole by allowing you to be a step ahead of your competitors.