A new report has revealed the most in-demand soft and hard skills for 2020. If you’re looking to add to your skillset or wondering what to highlight in your resume, this should come in handy.
The most in-demand soft skills
Let’s start with the top soft skills. Soft skills are always in demand. All things being equal with hard skills and qualifications, a smart employer will hire the person with the better soft skills. In fact, a smart employer may even hire a candidate who is lacking a few hard skills in favour of someone with better soft skills. Because a smart employer knows that hard skills can always be taught, some soft skills are inherent.
What are soft skills? They are a combination of character and personality traits and learned behaviours, like people skills, social skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills, and emotional intelligence. These are the skills that allow us to work well with others, network, and solve problems (problem-solving is a soft skill). They are applicable to every job and every industry, unlike hard skills, which are directly applicable to a job or task.
All soft skills are important to some degree, but some are more in demand than others.
Creativity tops the list of soft skills, which was released by LinkedIn, followed by “collaboration,” “persuasion,” and “emotional intelligence.”
Four of the five most in-demand soft skills have remained in their spots since last year, while “time management” has fallen off and “emotional intelligence” has moved into the top five.
This might not mean that “emotional intelligence” is now more important than “time management,” however, and might just be because “emotional intelligence” is a buzzword people are throwing around a lot these days. You should probably just make sure you have examples of both on your resume.
The most in-demand soft skills are the skills that will help you stand out from the competition, regardless of what your career goals are, what industry you’re in or what job you’re after.
The 5 most in-demand soft skills
The most in-demand hard skills:
Hard skills are teachable and measurable, like calculus and computer programming. They are easier to quantify than soft skills, which are subjectively measured. (That’s not to say soft skills can’t be taught – “communication” and “persuasion,” for example, can, of course, be taught.)
When it comes to hard skills, these reflect changes in the labour market. “Blockchain” is number one on this list for 2020. This is followed by “cloud computing” and “analytical reasoning.” “Business analysis” has moved up 10 spots from last year, from #16 to #6.
One hard skill that never goes out of style? “Sales,” which is #8 on the list. Humans will always need people to sell their products and services.