How to Build a Successful Team by Hiring with Soft Skills Assessments

If you Google “business success” and “soft skills,” your browser will return just over a couple hundred thousand results in 0.57 seconds – showing soft skills popularity and why soft skills assessments might be a good idea.

In an often-cited research study, Stanford Research Center, the Carnegie Foundation, and Harvard University found that 85 percent of job success comes from soft skills, whereas 15 percent comes from hard skills. 

The findings suggest that HR professionals should prioritize soft skills over hard skills. 

Continue reading to learn: 

• Why organizations should search for candidates with strong soft skills
• What soft skills are in the most demand today
• How to build a strong team using soft skills assessments 

Why Organizations Search for Candidates with Strong Soft Skills

Soft skills are in demand for a reason. Candidates with strong soft skills bring a host of benefits along with them. And, put a team of soft-skills rockstars together? Your organization will see the immediate benefits.

Here are some perks of using soft skills assessments to hire candidates with strong soft skills:

• Increased productivity: employees receiving soft skills training are 12 percent more productive than those without the training, delivering a 250 percent return on investment.
• Happier, more innovative employees: a 2020 Yale study found that when managers have higher levels of emotional intelligence (a sought-after soft skill), their employees are happier, more innovative, and more creative.
• More likely to upskill: when employees embrace curiosity and continuous learning, they are more likely to reskill and upskill throughout the course of their careers. 71 percent of workers claim that job training and upskilling increase their job satisfaction, while 61 percent say that upskilling opportunities give them a reason to stay at their jobs. 
• Don’t forget younger employees: sixty-six percent of workers between 18 and 24 rank upskilling and reskilling as the “third-most important perk” when considering a new job (just behind health insurance and disability benefits).

When employees are equipped with soft skills like curiosity and continuous learning, they’ll more easily learn needed hard skills – future-proofing their careers, With 58 percent of workers needing new skills to complete their jobs today successfully, continually learning job-related skills has never been more important.

This punctuates why hiring someone with well-developed soft skills is critical for your organization. 

What Soft Skills Are in the Most Demand Today

According to Linda Jingfangt Cai, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Talent Development, soft skills are the “currency of the future workplace.” But, with all the noise around soft skills in the workplace, what are employers looking for today – and tomorrow?

Here are some sought-after soft skills hiring managers look for:

• Leadership
• Problem-solving
• Time management
• Strategy
• Communication
• Emotional intelligence
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• Flexibility
• Growth mindset

How Soft Skills Assessments Can Help You Build a Strong Team

Understanding what soft skills a candidate brings to the table is harder than it seems. Although 93 percent of employers want to see soft skills when reviewing job candidates, hard skills still dominate most job applications and resumes. 

One surefire way to identify soft skills rockstar job candidates is through soft skills assessments. Soft skills assessments can tailor searches for candidates with strong soft skills, bringing those job candidates to the forefront.

Soft skills assessments, such as Cangrade’s Pre-Hire Assessments, can help hiring professionals:

• Widen their talent funnel
• Optimize role fit
• Increase diversity
• Support upskilling
• Drive retention

Get Started Now

Cangrade’s soft skills assessments can help your team root your candidate selection process in data. We build customized success models for your company and for the specific role itself. How do we do this? 

We use our AI-backed soft-skills assessments to unpack your current employees’ success and to predict your candidates’ future. 

Book your demo now to learn how soft skills assessments can help you build a successful team.