Soft skills for hard people

Interesting article in The Times Careers Section by Mark Hunter (17 June 2009). He talks about a broadening of the criteria required to land a job in IT, which has resulted in an increase in applicants. Traditionally the preserve of the geek, employers are now asking for more rounded skills. He quotes Andy Moverly, UK Graduate Recruitment Manager for IBM, “What we are finding more and more is that the breadth of applications is growing. It’s no longer just those from computer sciences courses but from those with a background in the arts, psychology, history, philosophy, right across the board. We think that is good because they key thing is not the technical skills – we can provide those once you get here – it’s often the softer skills such as adaptability, team working and communication.”

As Anthony Bowden, a support analyst for Cubit Technology puts it, “My job involves meeting clients face to face so I need to be able to communicate well with them. Obviously you need to know what you’re talking about but if you can’t explain it to the person standing next to you, it’s useless.”

Time and again we see companies place great emphasis on ‘hard’ skills while either ignoring or playing lip service to the soft areas of interpersonal skills. As Tom Peters once put it, “Hard is soft, and soft is hard!”