What if I asked you to name 10 skills that make a good candidate? ” Easy! », woud you answer me! But what if we look a little bit into the future? Just like our work habits, the skills we need – and are in demand! – evolve over time. So, do you think you can name the 10 skills that will be most in demand by temporary and permanent staffing agencies by 2025?
I never told you about my mechanic!
I don’t know if this is your case, but for my part my skills when it comes to taking care of my old beater stop at being able to change a wheel, which doesn’t make me any better than over 80% of the population according to a 2014 study. Therefore, I have a very special relationship with my mechanic. A kind of “love – distrust” for the one I cannot do without but of whom I do not understand a word when he speaks to me …
And then, a few days ago, when I brought my car in for an overhaul, the mechanic who usually took care of it was no longer there:
“He’s gone,” the owner told me,
“Ah? Was he no longer well here?”
“Yes, but he was no longer competent at all” he explained bitterly.
“But he has always been excellent at his job! I never had to complain about it!”
“Yes, but he had become overwhelmed. He was a great mechanic, one of the best I know, but cars today require more than mechanics. It’s electronics, IT … and then it’s service too! You must greet customers, explain what you’ve done, sometimes even justify every penny on an invoice … My mechanic no longer had the skills to do his job properly.”
Is employment only a matter of skill?
This anecdote is far from trivial: what is true with my mechanic is also elsewhere, in many areas of work!
The knowledge and skills required for a job evolve with the reality of that job as much as with technological advances. Who imagines an accountant unable to use an Excel file?
And as the job market becomes more complex, so do the knowledge and skills in demand.
You couldn’t miss it: soft skills – a common name for “behavioral skills” – are at the top of the trends in the staffing industry. They complement the technical skills – the hard skills – in the key criteria for efficient recruitment.
While technical skills are learned in school, refined through practice, and take months – if not years – of learning, soft skills are more difficult to pin down. For some, these are innate skills related to behavior, to personality. For others, it is a cultural baggage, transmitted through education, the transmission of values or even the social environment.
Should we put people back at the center of recruitment?
However, we can agree on one point: not all soft skills can be measured by diplomas or certificates. They are currently the most “human” element in the management of Human Resources.
A study carried out in France in 2018 by Pôle Emploi* – the French equivalent of Emploi Quebec – with French employers is in this respect really enlightening. [*only available in French]
Indeed, we learn firstly that “Six out of ten employers prioritize behavioral skills”, which they consider to be more important than technical skills. This is twice as much as those who think otherwise!
Even more interesting: for this same percentage, “The diploma is not an important criterion: it plays a secondary role, what really matters are rather the experience or the behavioral qualities“.
Technical or non-technical: what will be the most sought-after skills tomorrow?
But then, with the influence of soft skills now ingrained in recruiting, what trends can we expect in the future?
The response was published last October. Indeed, the World Economic Forum published, in its report “Futur of work”, a list of 10 skills which, according to these experts, will be the most sought after by 2025.
Unsurprisingly, there is a clever mix of hard and soft skills. But there is also a ranking of skills according to very specific criteria:
Technology-related skills will be a major component in the years to come.
As the example of my mechanic showed, adapting to new technologies is already a pivotal point in recruitment today. The World Economic Forum study indicates that this will still be the case by 2025, as two of the top ten skills sought will be based on new technologies.
Of course, we are not necessarily talking here of knowing how to code computer programs and develop futuristic technologies: ease with new technologies concerns much broader skills that are in demand daily. It even became more critical when working from home became mainstream!
I asked you earlier if you could imagine an accountant who doesn’t use Excel. The same goes for all digital tools: are you comfortable with collaborative platforms (like Microsoft Teams)? Have you ever known this coworker who panics at the thought of writing an email because “the phone is so much easier”? Are you one of those who prefer to print a report because it is more comfortable to read than on a screen?
Use your soft skills to better develop your hard skills.
At PRIM Logix, we are monitoring this carefully. As an staffing software company, we want to help temporary and permanent staffing agencies operate and grow: it is about helping them find the best candidates, but also about retaining successful and efficient employees.
Did you know that we offer customizable training plans? Fully modular, they are built like blocks designed to respond as directly as possible to user needs. So that your employees’ practices are always at the forefront of what your staffing agency software can offer!
Consult our page to establish your training plan and reserve your places! !
For further reading:
- The 10 Essential Skills Of A Good Recruiter
- How to place people at the heart of the staffing process?
- 3 Challenges for Employment Agencies in the Digital Age!
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