What five technical skills are employers seeking? What five soft skills put you on top?

In today’s world, where everything is very competitive among people and companies, employers are looking for the best people for the job and people who are seeking work, are looking for the best job that pays the best. That what makes the industry very competitive. First of all, let’s define what soft and technical skills are. According to Cordero, Farris and DiTomaso, technical skills “involve knowledge of a discipline, and familiarity and competence in the use of the tools and techniques of the discipline.” (2004, p.20) In the term of a Software Developer, hard skills are the ability to write an application program using the programming languages such as Java, C, Python, etc., or the ability to analyze and troubleshoot the programming problems. According to Oxford dictionary, soft skill is “Personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people”. For example, it can be the ability to work in a team structure, or the ability to make decisions and solve problems.

Today, a lot of students are asking themselves, which technical skill I should know more than the other. Some student might say that Java is something that everyone should know, and another will say that everybody is using Python today. So which one is the one??? There is no certain answer that is true at all times. At this point, Java is one of the most popular programming languages in this industry because it can be run on multiple platforms. However, no one can guarantee that Java will still be the main languages in the next few years. In order to become a successful computer scientist, you should never stop learning and improving your technical skills because everyhing is changing so quickly in the field of computer science. Here are the top 5 programming languages in 2015:

Although it is true that technical skills will get you an interview, what will eventually will get you a job and promotions in work, will be the soft skills. Bakar and Ting claimed that “Soft skills have become increasingly important to employers because they do contribute to the success of a project and the organization. It is estimated that a project’s failure rate is between 40% and 70% and lack of soft skills as been identified as the main reason for such failure” (2011, p.82). According to Forbes.com, those are the top 10 soft skills that employers are seeking for:

1. Ability to work in a team structure

2. Ability to make decisions and solve problems (tie)

3. Ability to communicate verbally with people inside and outside an organization

4. Ability to plan, organize and prioritize work

5. Ability to obtain and process information

6. Ability to analyze quantitative data

7. Technical knowledge related to the job

8. Proficiency with computer software programs

9. Ability to create and/or edit written reports

10. Ability to sell and influence others

It is true that soft skills are really difficult the test during an interview and employers are doing their best to try and analyze you with different life experience scenarios. Eventually you might get the job without having soft skills, but it's very doubtful that you will last more than three months before they will fire you.

References

Adams, Susan. "The 10 Skills Employers Most Want In 2015 Graduates." Forbes. Forbes Magazine,              12 Nov. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2015.

Bakar, A., & Ting, C. (2011). Soft Skills Recommendation Systems for IT Jobs: A Bayesian Network           Approach. 2011 3rd Conference on Data Mining and Optimization (DMO), 82-87. Retrieved               November 14, 2014, from IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Cordero, R., Farris, G., & DiTomaso, N. (2004). Supervisors in R&D Laboratories: Using Technical,           People, and Administrative Skills Effectively. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING             MANAGEMENT, 51(1), 19-30. Retrieved November 9, 2014, from IEEE Xplore Digital                     Library.

Joseph, D., Ang, S., & Slaughter, S. (1999). Soft Skills and Creativity in IS                                                    Professionals.Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences –            1999, Track 7, 1-5. Retrieved November 9, 2014, from IEEE Xplore Digital Library.