Without a doubt, the balanced mix between hard skills and soft skills of a person, at the time of being chosen to occupy a role within an organization, would be the ideal situation.
That person who not only has professional knowledge and is trained for what he is going to do, but who is also proactive, willing, has a vocation for service, focused on interpersonal communication and who manages stress well, are characteristics that all heads of organizations would like to find at the time of recruitment.
But, what happens when we do not achieve that perfect conjunction at the time of selecting the personnel that will integrate our company? What should we give more strength to? It is surely one of the questions that headhunting companies, personnel recruiters, or human resources departments within an organization ask themselves almost daily.
Hard skills are all those skills that the person has obtained thanks to their studies and work experiences. An accountant, for example, would have his hard skills reinforced if he has worked in an auditing company or has done some postgraduate, specialization or higher education; as for a lawyer, he would represent him to specialize in some area such as criminal, tax, etc.; or, a doctor who is not only a general surgeon, but also an obstetrician, oncologist, traumatologist, etc. That is, hard skills are given by everything you study, as well as everything where you have worked and gained experience. Among some hard skills we have:
- Writing ability.
- Calculation skills.
- Management of computer equipment.
- Management of complex problems.
- Development of large-scale projects.
- Management of problems related to the company’s operations.
- Optimization and maximization of resources.
- Increased productivity due to phenomena such as learning economies.
- Good handling of a very delicate situation.
- Operations Management.
- People direction.
On the other hand, soft skills or Soft Skills are those social skills that boost emotional intelligence. These transversal or socioemotional skills are focused on developing certain values and traits that foster communication and the effective relationship of a person with those around him. Within these skills we have:
- Teamwork.
- Empathy.
- Adaptation.
- Conflict resolution.
- Communication, among others.
The world of personnel selection has advanced so much from a scientific and technological point of view, that there are now tests that can be applied to potential workers to identify both their soft and hard skills (in the latter case because of the fact that “paper take it all”).
In this way, didactic games, stress tests and handling of complex situations have been incorporated into the selection processes, with a view to selecting the profile that best suits what the company requires.
However, at the time of recruitment it may be the case that the applicant for the position has very good hard skills, but is not proactive, little given to interpersonal relationships or cannot handle stressful situations; Thus, it may be the case that the person has good soft skills but his Curriculum Vitae does not have as many strengths at the level of study and / or experiences.
Perhaps because I came from the financial area, from the banking area, I saw many cases of people who started working in a bank as messengers and became presidents of the Bank, or as tellers in a bank branch and reached very important positions within it.
I even got to know a person who, at an operational level, was the one with the most knowledge of the system and the operation of the trust area of one of the banks where I was on the board, and that person only had a Bachelor’s degree, but all the other members of the organization, with degrees and even master’s degrees, came to ask this person when they had doubts about something related to the area.
Based on this experience, and what I have seen in all these years of professional life, I consider that the so-called soft skills in most cases become even heavier in the balance, when choosing a staff. Languages are learned, knowledge can be acquired over time, but being proactive, having leadership skills, being communicative and empathetic with others, among others, are things that cannot be exploited even with years of preparation if the person does not born with it.
Obviously there are positions for which hard skills are required over soft skills, and it is there where the role of those responsible for the human resources area is essential to achieve, or at least seek, a balance when selecting the profile that is required.
In any case, it is up to the human talent area of companies to identify for which positions hard skills are essential before recruitment and to classify those areas where knowledge can come after hiring. This is where the organization will be strengthened by hiring people with soft skills, although, without a doubt, the ideal is to find that perfect balance between all of them.