State of Soft Skills Chapter 3: What are Tech Recruiters Seeking?

It’s 2024 and Soft Skills are more important than ever before. I talked to some of the absolute best people I know in many different roles and in different stages in their careers. In this series, we’re sharing why soft skills are crucial for success. Missed Chapter 1 or Chapter 2?

Even in industries dominated by technical expertise, soft skills are surprisingly valued and sought after by recruiters and staffing professionals. In this chapter, we’ll be hearing from a proven HR professional who has an incredible resume of hiring rockstars in the CRM and digital marketing tech spaces.

It is easy to think intelligence and technical skill are the most important factors when hiring, but the reality is soft skills are absolutely needed and highly prioritized in candidate selection. 

Everyone on our mostly remote team must be able to expertly communicate with our clients and our team members. 

We need people who:

• are self-motivated
• manage their time well
• can lead projects and initiatives
• embrace the constant change in the tech industry
• (the list goes on!)

Assessment of soft skills takes place throughout the entire interview process, starting from the moment I begin the first round of phone interviews. Here are some evaluation points I use throughout my interview process:

• Do they communicate well and have we grown our relationship by the end of the phone call? 
• In each interview round, I ask questions with varying depths of technicality, to gauge if the candidate is able to explain complex technical concepts in a simple and easy-to-understand way. 
• I discuss their successes and challenges from past jobs to evaluate their self-awareness, conflict resolution, and honesty. 

During interviews for some roles like project manager, we go as far as doing a role play of a project status update meeting – this is the closest way we can see the person “in-action” as they deliver difficult news to the project team.

In summary, many tech companies are looking for technical experts who have the soft skills to succeed at a high level.

Seth’s Comment: There is so much good stuff in here. If you want to excel in tech, you need to own every aspect of your role: the projects, client relationships, team member dynamics, learning curves, and constant change.

Also, the role play interview is incredibly valuable. I interviewed a project manager who excelled at all interviews and had a terrible role play. Imagine if we had hired and that first experience had been with a client?

Takeaway Exercise: Tell a non-technical friend, spouse, or relative in your life a simplified version of a complex technical concept, and see how well you do!