Why your “Soft Skills” are more important than your degree

This was something I was compelled to learn.

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

A couple of years ago, during a hiring meeting, 5 other managers were in a hiring meeting with me. It had now only two candidates to go. One was a masters degree holder of a good university. The other had two year diploma in community college.

Guess who we hired?

Not the masters degree.

Here’s why.

The graduate strolled in as though he/she owned the room. Firm handshake. Perfect resume. Every answer rehearsed. They were a fairy tale on paper.

Then we inquired: Provide me with an example of an occasion when you differed with a teammate?

They froze. Then laughed. Then said I my generally right so it is not frequent.

Silence.

the other competitor -community college, no great name on their diploma- waited till their turn. Their resume was no pretty thing. When we put the same question, however, they inclined their head.

Oh, always they said. I have supposed last month that the idea that my colleague had was horrible and instead of telling her that, I have asked her to tell me. It turned out that I have only half of the story.

The answer to that could not be found in a textbook.

Your degree will assist you to make it beyond the robot screen. That’s it.

After that? No one is interested in what school you attended. They are concerned whether you are able to listen without strategizing on how to make a comeback. If you can apologize without being defensive. When you are able to read a room and comprehend when to speak — and when your mouth ought to be closed.

I have also seen how some geniuses have lost their jobs not because they are in the wrong but because they have made those around them feel inferior to who they are.

And I heard how people who were of average on-paper competence had been advanced three times in two years because they had learned how to say: What do you need me to do now?

When I was 22, I thought that my degree is my ticket. I framed it. Hung it on my wall. Was discussed during all the discussions as a sort of secret weapon.

Now I’m 34. Somewhere in a box is that frame.

What I in fact use in every day? Being aware of when to keep quiet. Learning to be able to admit that I was wrong. To learn how to express gratitude to someone without creating an awkward moment.

That you can not put on a resume. but you may miss it when it is lost.

The clumsy fact is here then.

Your possessing a degree is a testimony that you can sit down and take orders four years. That’s valuable. It is not nothing that I am saying.

Yet tender skills are witness that you can transact business with other human beings without them being allured to take flight.

And in a world where the majority of individuals leave employment due to poor bosses, rather than poor work?

This is more precious than a diploma.

Here I leave thee.

The individual who has the master degree? Then 6 months later they wrote me an email inquiring as to why they had not been given the job. I have articulated the issue of teamwork in a polite manner. They responded: That is not an acceptable skill, you have done something wrong.

The student of the local college? The two are the latest members that have been promoted to head a team of twelve members.

They have not even been once mentioned with regards to their level of education.

Yet their forbearance, their inquisitiveness, their power to say help me understand, rather than you are wrong?

That is one thing which is raised on a daily basis.