Why Are Soft Skills More Valued Than Hard Skills in Today's Job Market?

Hello there, even though I am a Soft Skills Trainer and have created my own self-learning Audio-Visual modules on various traits of Personal and Professional Development, I still yearn to learn more about the reasons why Soft Skills are more employability-oriented than Hard Skills nowadays. Please share your insights.

Warm regards,
Deepak Khanna
Winman Global Foundation

Dear Mr. Deepak Khanna,

The Importance of Balancing Soft and Hard Skills

Soft skills and hard skills are two sides of the same coin. These are inseparable. One cannot be developed at the cost of another.

For raising the level of employability, both skills are equally important. In India, employers take a lopsided view and give primacy to hard skills or functional skills. This is because employers are unable to calculate the losses caused by the lack of soft skills. When they start measuring it, they will start giving importance to soft skills as well.

Partially, soft skills trainers are also at fault. How many soft skills trainers are able to quantify revenue loss because of the lack of soft skills among the staff of their clients? How many even know how to quantify them?

Soft skills trainers need to learn to give importance to the hard part of their job, i.e., the revenue side, and not the soft part of it, i.e., body language, voice, tone, etc.

Thanks,

Dinesh V Divekar

Dear Mr. Deepak Khanna,

I agree with Mr. Dinesh as I am employed abroad. Here, most organizations (not owned by Indians) look for both SOFT SKILLS & HARD SKILLS, but high preference is given to SOFT SKILLS rather than HARD SKILLS because there is a specific reason behind that.

The Importance of Soft Skills

SOFT SKILLS play a vital role in making the best of HARD SKILLS as one should know beyond COMMUNICATION SKILLS (ORAL/WRITTEN), PRESENTATION SKILLS, BODY LANGUAGE, etc. Henceforth, those organizations that are not giving preference to SOFT SKILLS are not able to escalate themselves to the next level of success and are failing to provide THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE.

For me, it's very difficult to define SOFT SKILLS because it's like an OCEAN where one has to learn more than required rather than just concentrating on HARD SKILLS (whatsoever may be).

Understanding the Association with Employability

To understand how soft skills are closely associated with EMPLOYABILITY FACTORS rather than HARD SKILLS, kindly study a STUDENT who just graduated from any professional institution and one who has just 6-12 months of experience. This gives you the complete picture.

SOFT SKILLS cannot be limited to only educated professionals, but even a school dropout worker needs to learn soft skills to an extent for survival factors.

With profound regards,