No Soft Skills Without Hard Skills

In summary

Hard skills are the technical skills specific to a trade.

Soft skills are trickier to define: they're more accurately described as behavioural and cross-functional skills.

In recent years, soft skills have drawn growing attention, sometimes at the risk of sliding into empty conformity rather than genuine rigour, as Julia de Funès points out.

In practice, companies still put the bulk of their resources into technical skills, and job ads almost always list hard skills as the first requirement.

The rise of AI is reinforcing the need for technical skills even further, to the point that "learning how to learn" is becoming the most decisive meta-skill in a fast-changing environment.

Defining soft skills

What's the right French translation for "soft skills"? If hard skills are technical skills, sometimes also called job-specific skills because they're tied to practising a defined profession, defining "soft skills" is trickier. Soft as in gentle? As in weak? The English word "soft" carries the same meaning as in "soft power" or "soft law": elements whose undeniable impact is indirect, sitting alongside the classic tools of diplomacy and law. It's more accurate to talk about behavioural skills (how to act within an organisation) and cross-functional skills (useful not for one specific job, but in a specific situation).

Waking up to the importance of soft skills

Over the past few years, cross-functional skills have been getting all the attention. They're seen as increasingly important in today's professional environment. They're even taught to children, even though the school curriculum is geared towards acquiring theoretical knowledge. Bookshop shelves are packed with more or less scientific books on personal development, while coaches and trainers offer countless seminars in every possible format.

Behind this rise in the value placed on soft skills is, among other things, the growth of the service economy overtaking industry, which may have suggested technical skills mattered less.

This awareness was probably necessary, to counterbalance training paths, at school as much as in companies, that had completely ignored behavioural skills.

Yet recognising the importance of developing these soft skills shouldn't overshadow the need to master job-specific skills.

Extract from the study "Les Français et la formation professionnelle" (2022), carried out by Harris Interactive for the Les Acteurs de la Compétence federation.

There's a considerable gap between the prevailing narrative, which insists on the need to develop soft skills, and the pragmatic reality of companies' skill needs. Today's culture of empty conformity isn't entirely unrelated to this either. The risk, as Julia de Funès points out, is sliding towards mediocrity for lack of daring to be demanding. Company HR departments have stepped up their efforts to offer personal development training and other behavioural skills courses. Yet they still devote most of their resources to developing technical skills.

Rightly so: these remain essential for passing on know-how and staying competitive. In an increasingly technical, tech-driven environment, the need for hard skills keeps growing. There's no meeting the challenges of digital and environmental transformation without developing strong technical skills and new job-specific tasks.

The list of skills requested in job ads is telling.

Most requested skills in online job ads in EU27 in Skills, 2022 - Source: CEDEFOP.

Even today, in most external hiring cases, technical skills are the requirement, while soft skills, always listed second, make the difference between candidates. The pattern flips for roles requiring no qualification or prior experience, where recruiters first look at candidates' motivation and soft skills, then develop the job-specific skills of those they select.

And where does AI fit in?

The mass arrival of AI-powered applications raises the question of which skills need to be acquired or strengthened to work in a professional environment inevitably shaped by AI.

Whether for people whose jobs are directly tied to AI, whose scientific skills matter and keep evolving, or for the users of these applications who also need training, the need for new technical skills is immense. CEDEFOP (the EU institution that helps member states shape their training policy) has built extremely detailed skills frameworks (DigComp). Unlike what's typically seen in company frameworks, DigComp doesn't split skills into job-specific skills on one side and cross-functional skills on the other, but into skill families (examples from DigComp for citizens: digital content creation, communication and collaboration, and so on) that group together skills of different natures, which would sometimes be difficult, and pointless, to categorise separately.

Beyond this example tied to digital transformation, there's broad agreement on the extremely strong need for skill development. Ultimately, learning how to learn seems to be, in today's context, the ultimate meta-skill for being able to adapt to an environment that's constantly and rapidly changing.

What Daylindo brings to this debate

This debate between soft skills and hard skills connects directly to one of the blind spots Daylindo aims to address: most HR tools know how to track self-reported skills or training completed, but few know how to observe and trace whether a job-specific task is genuinely mastered on the ground. This is precisely what the Daylindo platform structures: giving technical skills the same rigour of observation and traceability that's now being sought for soft skills.

Evidence from organisations that have structured this dual approach confirms the point made in this article: the most effective skill development doesn't come at the expense of hard skills, it combines them with behavioural skills, without sacrificing one for the other.

FAQ

What's the difference between hard skills and soft skills?

Hard skills are the technical skills specific to a trade. Soft skills, more accurately called behavioural and cross-functional skills, refer to attitudes and abilities useful across a range of situations, beyond any one specific job.

Why have soft skills become so important in recent years?

Partly because of the growth of the service economy relative to industry, and to counterbalance training paths that had long ignored behavioural skills, both at school and in companies.

Do companies genuinely prioritise soft skills in recruitment?

Not in observed practice: technical skills remain the top requirement in most job ads, with soft skills only coming in second to make the difference between candidates.

Why do some people criticise the excessive focus on soft skills?

Because, according to voices like Julia de Funès, it risks sliding into a form of mediocrity if rigour on technical skills and results takes a back seat.

Does artificial intelligence reduce the need for technical skills?

No, it increases it. Whether for roles directly tied to AI or for the users of these tools, the need for new technical skills is immense and constantly evolving.

What is the "learning how to learn" meta-skill mentioned in this article?

It's the ability to continuously adapt to a fast-changing skills environment, seen as the most decisive skill of all, beyond hard skills and soft skills taken separately.