Originally posted by Jane Smith:
What is the soft and hard skills?
What the companies are looking?
How important are the soft and hard
skills in job search?
Hard skills are things like programming languages you know, platforms you have experience with, etc. Basicly, technical skills (at least when talking about a technical position).
Soft skills, on the other hand, have to do with things such as your communication skills, your ability to relate with others, leadership ability, ability to follow instructions etc. basicly, your non-technical skills.
I don't know whether your ability to learn quickly and problem solve (not necessarily in a technical context) would go under a hard or soft (or perhaps meta) skill.
As far as what companies are looking for and in job searches, I believe employers look for them in a sandwich fashion, with soft skills at the bottom and top and hard skills in the middle. Let me explain:
Imagine you are applying for a specific job in the U.S. If you speak NO English, and no one on your prospective team speaks your language, then in many cases, it doesn't matter how good a programmer you are, you are not getting the Job (e.g. if they can't understand the language of your resume, you probably won't be getting a call from them). So there must a basic level of soft skills (like being able to communicate with your team) that you must have.
They also need to know that you have the technical/hard skills to perform the job. If you are a wonderful speaker, work amazingly well in a team and follow instructions well, that won't count for much if you're applying for a
java programmer position and have never touched a computer before, let alone programmed on.
It seems a lot of employers stop here, once they know you can speak english (in the U.S.) and have the hard/technical skills to do the job, thats all they are concerned with (probably because those are easiest to discover). In my opinion, these employeers should be digging deeper into the soft skills area if they want to develop the best team.
I remember working for one company that hired a person who was very technically competent, but was HORRIBLE when working with others as part of a team. He would not communicate enough with the rest of the team (not because he didn't speak English, he was American), would make changes without telling anyone, and in some cases was hostile (or at least very rude) to other team members.
So while he was technically very competent, his introduction to our team SERRIOUSLY decreased our collective performance. In fact, a manager once noted that we seemed to get more done when this guy was on vacation. :roll:
So, both hard and soft skills are important, I don't think enough emphasis is placed on soft skills, especially considering how much easier it is to teach specific hard skills than soft skills.
Jon