Last year I met Masaki, a young Japanese man who was walking the Camino de Santiago for breakfast in a Galician hotel. “I’m not doing this out of religious belief,” he clarified, “I’ve finished my studies and am looking for a job.” In my country, companies place a lot of value on this kind of thing, and this pilgrimage earns you points if it is “It’s about being selected for a good position.” The most competitive companies have for some time now not only paid attention to the academic degrees or master’s degrees of their potential employees; But they also look at those skills that are not taught in universities but that can be crucial when it comes to closing a business, winning a new customer or leaving the audience open-mouthed after a good presentation. These are the so-called soft skills, which include, among other things, communication skills, adaptability, critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, teamwork, motivation, problem solving or empathy.
Companies like Google have been pioneers in selecting their candidates for more than just their titles; Because the attitude, known in the company as googliness, is just as important as the studies. Googliness is not characterized by diplomas, professional experience or the languages spoken; not even for skills. It’s a mix of all of that plus values and personality; And sometimes it can have a lot to do with playing sports, having traveled the world, being able to play the saxophone, walking dogs as a volunteer at the city kennel, or working in a neighborhood community’s urban garden on Sundays.
More information
Soft skills, also known as transversal skills, are becoming increasingly important in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) because they still defy technology even though it tries to imitate them and because they are more difficult to learn. “Even the clumsiest can end up dealing with an application, but many soft skills, such as creativity, are either factory-made or non-existent,” says Jimmy Naraine, who teaches international business and administration at Aston Business School in Birmingham has studied. (United Kingdom) and teaches corporate training and leadership courses for Udemy, a leading online learning platform. “The problem with these skills,” Naraine continues, “is that technology often prevents us from training them. We lose them and have to relearn them.” It is not for nothing that the courses most requested by this teacher are the ones , which deal with public speaking or improving self-confidence, resilience and leadership.
Soft skills are gaining new momentum in the age of artificial intelligence because they still defy technology and because they are more difficult to learn. skynesher (Getty Images)
In May and June this year, the MEGASKILLS project conducted a study to find out the opinions of a hundred European companies on soft skills, their value in organizations and the skills they consider most important. The GECON.es Foundation and European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME were involved in the preparation of this survey. The work found that the soft skills most in demand by companies are, in order: time management, problem solving, motivation, teamwork/collaboration, critical thinking, adaptability and communication. However, it must be taken into account that the order of this list varies depending on the sector in which the organization operates (education, technology, manufacturing, services). It is also striking that an overwhelming 89.9% of the companies surveyed stated that they are aware of the need for specialists with important soft skills, even though the proportion of the workforce with these skills is already lower at 71.1%.
AI will change the meaning of the word work
The enormous change in the labor market and work will not come in the form of an earthquake, but rather like a flood that rises without rest and inundates everything. “AI uses models with billions of parameters and is capable of imitating something as complex as human language,” says Enrique Dans, Professor of Innovation at IE University (Madrid) and author, “so many professions that use it have to do.” Language can be threatened or changed. In South Korea, however, where there is a shortage of low-skilled workers, AI has focused heavily on robotics and there are already robot waiters or salespeople that perform less creative tasks.”
Almost all labor experts agree that artificial intelligence will not only eliminate certain jobs, but also create others and will undoubtedly change the way we work and manage. “I think, for example, of all the enormous amounts of information that comes to us from everywhere and the need for someone to verify its authenticity or its sources,” emphasizes economist Ernesto Poveda. “Because in a world where decisions have to be made against the clock, the immediacy of action will clash with the need to verify information, under threat of feared legal consequences.” But here too, technology is evolving much faster than regulations “, he continues. “In my opinion, adaptability is undoubtedly the most valuable skill in these times. We need to know how to adapt to the thousands of changes that lie ahead in the way we work and in our relationships with our colleagues, since everything will be more transversal and better coordinated between the different departments. Decisions will have to be made more in groups and this will also have an impact on management and leadership,” predicts Poveda.
If it is true that soft skills are increasingly in demand, interest in them varies depending on the region. “The United States, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico, the preeminent country in Latin America, are the markets most aware of the importance of soft skills,” says Jimmy Naraine. The explanation for this variability comes from Enrique Dans: “It is the pendulum rule. So far we have been very interested in technical profiles; However, as more and more people master the technology and as it changes at lightning speed (what you know today is outdated tomorrow), companies are starting to take an interest in more permanent skills, but at uneven rates. In markets like the US, where there are many job opportunities, soft skills vary. However, Spain is a market with a high demand for jobs and these skills are not taken into account as much. We are still a service country with a rather archaic way of running companies. Talent is not as valued, so young people with a bit of ambition go abroad, where they also pay better.”
New resumes for new professional skills
At this point, the question arises as to how to evaluate the soft skills of a potential candidate for a position. It’s not easy, according to Vicente Gómez, managing partner of g2Talentum, a staffing company specializing in precision and quality selection processes. “We don’t have a lot of confidence in testing, we are more focused on conducting competency interviews, we ask about their experiences and how they dealt with them, or we present them with cases and ask them to solve them,” he explains.
Interviews are increasingly about asking questions about skills, about experiences candidates have had and how they overcame them, or presenting them with practical cases to solve. vgajic (Getty Images)
Gómez talks not only about soft skills, but also about values, which they always take into account in selection interviews; Especially when it comes to positions that involve communication (whether internal or external), the implementation of transversal projects, negotiations, commercial profiles, business development or project management. “Values are the concepts that are important to a person as an individual. For example, when you focus more on yourself or on the company or project. Respect or honesty would be other values to consider,” he says.
Many resumes are also beginning to adapt to this new reality, emphasizing those innate skills that were previously reduced to a paragraph at the end that is usually cheesy and trite and goes something like: “I consider myself a very demanding and responsible person. with a great ability for teamwork and learning.” “A new way to create a resume,” explains Gómez, “is to insert a personal description after the personal data and before the titles and professional experience, in which the most important skills and skills are highlighted.”
In an increasingly technological and digital world, everything that relates to our human dimension is proving desirable. “Aside from skills and qualifications, there is something that is unquantifiable that is hugely attractive to us,” says Jimmy Naraine. “That’s why a lot of business is conducted outside of the workplace, while traveling, at events, at parties. And I think we could call that humanity.”
Rita Fullness She is a journalist, sexologist and author of the website RitaReport.net.