The Leadership IQ study shows that hiring managers stand a much higher chance of picking a winner when they focus on soft skills. Of the 5,247 hiring managers involved in the research, 812 demonstrated significantly higher hiring success and they were the ones that placed importance on interpersonal and motivational issues during the interviewing process.
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Almost half (46%) of new recruits will fail in their jobs in the first 18 months and only 11% of them because of a lack of technical skills. So says a three-year study conducted by the global leadership training and research company Leadership IQ.
If it’s not technical skills that are the problem, then what is? Interpersonal skills and motivational drivers are the real issue here. According to the research 26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept feedback, 23% because of insufficient emotional intelligence, 17% because they don’t have the required motivation to excel and 15% because they possess the wrong temperament for their role.
Hiring for attitude
No wonder then that interpersonal skills have moved up the recruitment and employment agenda in recent years. “We have seen an increased respond on the hire for soft skills” topic at leading HRTech exhibitions, Christer Balle, Head of Marketing & Sales at softfactors Ltd states. Now many recruitment, HR and line managers hire for attitude rather than just technical prowess. Soft skills are in high demand.
Soft skills are now easy to measure in recruiting
HRTech cloud based recruiting software softfactors measures and compares both resumes and soft skills. Now, organizations can use soft skills analytics to transform their recruitment processes. softfactors offers a fully customizable solution delivering every aspect of recruitment support from pure ATS functionality through pre-screening to market leading assessment quality. Don’t’ simply choose your next employee from their polished CV. Instead, select your next employee based upon hard facts about your candidate’s personality – with 25 competencies assessed for a detailed view – the “soft skills”, which also includes motivational drivers, stress resistance and conflict handling.
Conclusion
When hiring for attitude, recruiters, HR and line managers want to see that a candidate is really self-motivated to do well, to work as part of a team and contribute to organizational success. They want employees to be committed, to be self starters and able to take the initiative. These are not skills that can necessarily be easily taught but they are all skills that are important in terms of employee, team, and organizational productivity.