The Job Seeker’s Top Advantage

A skill that is so underrated when it comes to job hunting is the interaction between the applicant and the hiring manager. I’m not talking about the accuracy of a response to a technical question. Nor am I talking about how well-rehearsed an interview can be. I am specifically talking about the delivery and flexibility of the applicant. I am talking about how the applicant must be comfortable enough to communicate with the hiring manager and show a good cultural fit between the two. This is not a simple essay on how to improve one’s social skills so as to pass a job interview, but to show its importance and potential. It has been shown that 65% of recruiters consider strong written or spoken communication skills to be more important in an entry-level job applicant than the college major itself. Additionally, this essay is not to be limited to job-seeking but to career advancement.

Candidates often think that memorizing facts from the company website and regurgitating them in a prepared speech would result in a successful interview, but this is so far removed from the truth and it is painfully obvious. There is a survey created by the ICIMS that describes 90% of college seniors being confident in their interviewing skills, while more than 60% of recruiters say their interview skills leave much to be desired. This threatening disparity shows that applicants are more likely to be expecting much more from their interview than what is the bleak reality of their imminent refusal.

However, this is not a purely negative discovery. If a job applicant is aware of this very fact, then they can consciously focus on a deeper mastery of the social aspect. This can give them a significant advantage over the less prepared applicants. As seen in ICIMS’ survey, 60% of recruiters are still disappointed with a 90% confident cohort of college seniors.

The Key to Career Advancement

One of the most important parts of career advancement is the ability to stand out from your peers. This will give your management the impression that you are more responsible and capable of larger-scale/managerial tasks. It has been proven through surveying 400 HR professionals that 94% of them consider an employee with considerable social skills more dependable than an employee with years of experience but weaker soft skills.

Properly articulating your points is important to stand out from your peers.

The co-author of this study, Chief Marketing Officer, Susan Vitale stated that “promotions are dependent on managing other employees”. Not only do they help employees seem more reliable, but they also help you articulate your points better. As we see more and more jobs become automated, soft skills are increasingly important. Managing employees, conveying the work culture, and leading cross-functional projects cannot be performed by a robot to the same extent as a human. The thing is, most things in any industry can be trained to a suitable degree of expertise, however, social skills are something that is not as common and thus more sought after.

A Few Words of Caution

Having good soft skills, appearing presentable, and speaking eloquently is great, but there are a few pitfalls with appearing too eager. Oftentimes, hiring managers can see through artificiality. According to the report, 75% of hiring managers have rejected applicants solely due to their lack of soft skills required for the job. Another statistic shows that 74% of applicants never follow up after an interview. This can be considered a red flag by many recruiters, as this can translate into not following up with a potential client or senior employee.

Video introductions are more prevalent as an application tool.

The report also shows that many hiring managers are now using 90-second video introductions to screen applicants. Obviously, they consider the fluidity of the applicant’s introduction, but they consider the professionality of the background and even the applicant’s wardrobe. Even though this is still a small sample size of hiring managers, it is still important to be conscious of these factors.

Practicing Soft Skills

It is possible to pick up soft skills. As I mentioned, it is important to be conscious of many of the points that I mentioned and that is the first step. You can consider hiring managers, or senior employees to be like clients. Treat them with decency, follow up with them, and demonstrate leadership to stand out from your peers. Find a mentor who is successful at leading other people, or join community groups like Toastmasters where you can practice your speaking skills. The mentor can even be someone in your workplace, showing that you are a go-getter, giving you points in terms of progressing towards a promotion.

Finally, there are always resources online that help to improve your social skills. Websites like Udemy, and Coursera are a good place to start. Numerous internal training programs also offer soft skills improvement. Many people avoid these since they don’t believe that they will be useful, or they are mostly just teaching common sense. However, given the statistics that we observed, this is clearly not the case. If the only thing stopping you from the promotion or your dream job is improving your soft skills, then why not just take a few hours out of your day to improve them.