Soft skills

What is really important to personnel!

“Silvia Follmann” Show the boss what your resume can’t tell: Your personality. (Source: Unsplash)

Our suitability for a job is often determined by our work experience. But the bosses have other things in mind: our soft skills.

Trust in your emotional intelligence

The opportunities we have for a good education are still strongly linked to our origins. No improvement in sight. And even if we have passed our Abitur with subsequent studies, we are by no means automatically blessed with work experience or the required know-how. This is where self-confidence can go to your knees when it comes to job advertisements.

But that is not necessary at all. For employers, hard skills, i.e. training and work experience, are no longer the first priority when it comes to their desired employees. Christine Romans of CNN Business has already published the book “Smart is the new rich” in 2010, in which she quotes a study by the recruitment agency Express Employment Professionals in which employers were asked about the top eight qualifications of applicants. The work experience came in last. Much more important for the employers was what the applicants brought to the team in terms of social skills. Because bosses want strong personalities who can enrich a team not only with specialist knowledge, but above all with themselves, support each other and help each other forward. Of course, ability continues to play an important role, so you can’t fool yourself.

Which soft skills count?

A new survey by the recruitment agency also deals with soft skills.

The result is these Top 5:

  • Reliability / trustworthiness
  • strong communication skills
  • motivation
  • enthusiasm
  • Flexibility/ Adaptability

Bob Funk, CEO of Express Employment Professionals, sums up the result as follows: “It’s easy to think that in a job interview it’s the CV that counts. But the truth is that employers are equally, if not more interested in who applies to them – as employees and future employees. And that’s exactly what the soft skills tell us.”

So before you pray down your page-long CV in the next interview, better plan some time to show yourself as a person. Because the recruiter could already read your CV, now he wants to get to know you.