Soft skills: what are they, and which are the most demanded?

Soft skills are highly demanded skills in the recruitment processes of companies because they are essential to adapt to changing work environments. Resilience, flexibility, stress management, and creativity are necessary to face the current challenges of markets and digital transformation. 

These soft skills complement the technical capabilities of workers and encourage people to give their best version, which benefits both their professional development and the business strategy itself.

Given their growing importance, we will help you understand what soft skills are and which are most in demand.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are a combination of skills, attitudes, habits, and personality traits that enable people to perform better in the workplace beyond their objectives and regardless of their education level or role in the company.

Soft skills complement technical skills – also known as hard skills – and influence how people behave and interact. 

Skills such as communication, leadership, and empathy are increasingly in demand in recruitment and selection processes and help people thrive socially and personally at work. 

Keep in mind that these skills are constantly needed in different contexts, as you can see in these examples: 

• To negotiate the terms of a new contract, you need negotiation skills. 
• To present an idea or a project, you use communication skills. 
• To meet project deadlines, you need organizational and time management skills. 
• To deal with unforeseen events, you need a critical spirit and flexibility. 

Soft skills are learned throughout people’s life and professional experience in the process of practice and error, so they need more time to develop compared to hard skills. 

The list of the 10 most demanded soft skills

What soft skills do employers look for?

Traditionally, leadership, self-discipline, and organizational skills have been 3 of the primary soft skills because they allow you to enhance your teams’ skills and achieve the best version of yourself. 

Let’s look at 10 others that are equally strategic and valued in different types of recruitment.   

Flexibility

Flexibility, especially in digital environments, is increasingly required in contexts requiring transversal and multipurpose teams to combine projects successfully. 

Likewise, recruitment agencies and headhunters are looking for profiles willing to learn new soft skills. 

Creativity

Having creative people in your teams fosters innovation in your company, but it is also involved in the ability to resolve conflicts. 

Communication

Communication in its full spectrum, including active listening and the ability to express oneself in public, is becoming an increasingly necessary skill. 

Communicating effectively becomes a strategic tool for building professional relationships with colleagues, clients, supervisors, etc. 

Resilience

Resilience provides the person who develops it with the necessary strength to face adversity or recover from critical situations. 

It is complemented by other skills such as creativity, flexibility, and autonomy.

Stress management

Business environments are increasingly changing and require people to know how to manage stress without getting into a panic that blocks and limits their performance.

Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence or emotion management allows people to abstract from a problem by analyzing their emotions and those of their collaborators and to develop resources.

Time management

Time management means knowing how to prioritize and work more efficiently by focusing on the value of each action. Without this organization, taking on a project or team management and meeting the company’s objectives is impossible.

Cooperation and teamwork

Working in a team, managing frustration without impacting other colleagues, respecting divergent opinions, and recognizing mistakes are essential soft skills in a changing and highly technological world.

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to formulate one’s opinion on a problem, analyze it and find the most appropriate solution autonomously.

Negotiation skills

Indispensable in project management, negotiation skills and, therefore, persuasion are necessary for a company and not only in terms of budget management. 

You may need to negotiate a salary increase, a delivery date for a product or service, and how to deal with a problem or solve a conflict.

Why soft skills are important to learn

Soft skills can be acquired or improved through education and training. This is what is known as soft skills training and consists of: 

• Detecting the soft skills needed in your company that are linked to the behaviors you want to have in your company. 
• Establish the necessary training strategies to enhance your teams or prioritize them in talent recruitment. 
• Identify the channels and tools that will allow you to establish the necessary correspondence between soft skills and training strategies.

Consider setting up a professional coaching program or mentoring if you want to enhance your team’s skills. 

Soft skills can also be detected and trained thanks to specialized HR management software for remote training and recruitment. 

In addition, our proctoring products are professional online monitoring tools that are as effective as they are easy to install.  

Request a free demo if you prefer a hands-on experience of what we offer.