Hiring? Looking for professionals with the right skill sets? Sure, you need those hard skills to be put to work for you and your business, and yet, we often overlook or are subtly unaware of soft skills that talent has or does not have.
There is often talk of hiring for culture fit, but culture is often difficult to define clearly. What can be defined clearly is the presence or absence of soft skills. If you can identify the soft skills that your company wants and needs, then it will be much easier to choose (quickly) talent that will be a good fit for a long-term culture fit.
Here are 3 Benefits of Hiring People With Excellent Soft-Skills
1. You Can Shorten Your Hiring Process
If you know the hard and soft skills you are looking for, it should be easy to say, quickly, yes or no. Gone are the days when candidates are willing to go through many rounds of interviews at your company exclusively. They are most definitely looking elsewhere as well. Just as with goal setting, if you know what you are looking for, you can get there. If you don’t know what you are looking for in terms of soft skills, it may be difficult to choose between several great candidates and not lose them because it took so long. In summary, shorten your hiring process by knowing what you are looking for, specifically. You can be very intentional about this by pairing your company’s job descriptions with 2-5 soft skills that you need a candidate to have to be, at the least, a good fit for that role.
2. Company Culture Benefits Immediately
If you know the soft skills that you are looking for, as soon as you hire someone with those skills, the rest of your team, clients, and business partners will notice. While you cannot control the career trajectory of an employer, when aligning your hiring goals with soft skills, and ultimately culture, the rest of the organization benefits.
3. Your Employee Experience is Better
If you’re able to spot the right talent more quickly (because you know the soft skills you’re looking for), and you’re able to hire them faster, you’ve already gained a loyal employee because most hiring processes are long, cumbersome, and require a lot of initial work of the applicant even though they don’t work for that company yet. Lower the stress of applying and you’ll see the benefits.
5 Highly Sought After Soft Skills That You Can Start With.
Problem Solving
The ability to look at a situation and decisively produce solutions that are actionable.
Communication
Both verbal and non-verbal communication is based on empathy and how your audience received said communication. Just as Qui Gon Jinn says in Star Wars, “the ability to speak does not make you intelligent.”
Time Management
This soft skill is often equated to someone being a self-starter. Be careful not to mistake one for the other. Someone who is a self-starter may “self-start” well but not be able to fulfil the job requirements because they are not able to manage 100% of their time effectively. There are certainly times of optimized work and others of less structured time, but overall, someone who had highly attuned time management skills doesn’t need help meeting goals or managing their workload.
Leadership
Similarly, do not mistake management experience for leadership. Someone can truly lead at any level in an organization without having management experience. Leadership often starts with an introspective self-learner who is able to influence others around them toward a common goal.
Creativity
Creative thought doesn’t always come from one side of the brain, so to speak. Creativity can often be expressed through facts, logic and analysis. This soft-skill can have very long-lasting impacts on an organization.
Need Help Finding Professional Talent? Panther Can Help
We can help you find professional talent to help you grow and meet your goals.
If you’re looking for professional employees in the following areas, we welcome you to contact our team today to access our talent pools and recruiting expertise: Professional, Life Sciences, Engineering, Federal, Information Technology, Accounting & Finance. Contact us today!
