We've all made that hire: impressive CV, perfect experience, but they struggled to fit in or perform. The missing piece? Soft skills.
Soft skills determine whether technical ability translates into workplace success.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are the interpersonal and personal attributes that determine how effectively people interact with others, manage themselves, and navigate workplace challenges. Unlike hard skills that are job-specific (technical abilities like coding or accounting), soft skills are transferable across all roles and industries.
Some examples of important soft skills:
- Communication - expressing ideas clearly and listening actively.
- Teamwork - collaborating effectively and building trust.
- Adaptability - thriving in changing environments.
- Problem-solving - tackling challenges with creativity and logic.
- Emotional intelligence - understanding and managing emotions.
- Resilience - maintaining performance under pressure.
- Leadership - motivating and influencing others.
Hard skills can be taught through training, but soft skills are rooted in personality and unlikely to drastically change. While both matter, soft skills often make the bigger difference in long-term success.
Are soft skills more important than hard skills?
Research suggests, yes. Harvard University, Carnegie Foundation, and Stanford Research Center concluded that 85% of job success comes from well-developed soft skills, while only 15% comes from technical knowledge (National Soft Skills Association, 2025).
This doesn't mean hard skills are irrelevant. When hiring a developer, you will need to hire someone who knows how to code. But soft skills determine whether that hire will thrive and contribute to team success once in the role.
Soft skills have a real impact on workplace and team performance
The impact of soft skills isn't theoretical. Real companies that prioritise hiring for individual soft skills see measurable business results.
Stronger collaboration and productivity
Employees with strong communication skills actively listen, express ideas clearly, and navigate disagreements constructively. Those with high emotional intelligence read team dynamics and adjust their approach accordingly. Conflicts get resolved quickly instead of festering, ideas flow freely, and projects move forward without interpersonal roadblocks.
Teams with strong collaborative skills finish projects 50% faster (Project Management Institute, 2023).
Better customer experiences
Customer-facing success depends on empathy (understanding customer frustrations), active listening (truly hearing their needs), patience (staying calm under pressure), and problem-solving (finding creative solutions). These soft skills turn routine interactions into positive experiences that build loyalty and drive repeat business.
Adaptability to change
When priorities shift, employees with resilience bounce back from setbacks, those with learning agility quickly master new processes, and strong problem-solvers help teams navigate uncertainty. Rather than resisting change, they encourage and help others adapt.
Companies that manage change well are 3.5x more likely to outperform peers (McKinsey, 2023).
Leadership potential
Natural leaders emerge through measurable traits: emotional intelligence (reading and managing team morale), influence and persuasion (getting buy-in without authority), communication skills (inspiring and directing others), and initiative (stepping up when needed). These soft skills create informal leaders who drive results regardless of their job title.
Improved wellbeing and retention
Employees with high resilience handle stressful roles without burning out. Those with low neuroticism (emotional stability) maintain steady performance and positive relationships. When teams have strong interpersonal skills, workplace conflicts decrease, stress levels drop, and job satisfaction increases - creating the kind of positive environment that attracts top talent and keeps them engaged.
The case study of Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines built their entire hiring strategy around founder Herb Kelleher's philosophy: "Hire for attitude, train for skill." But what does this look like in practice?
According to Julie Weber, Southwest's VP of People, they don't hire for generic "soft skills." Instead, they target three specific attributes:
- Warrior spirit - the desire to excel, act with courage, and persevere.
- Servant's heart - putting others first and treating everyone with respect.
- Fun-loving attitude - passion, joy, and not taking yourself too seriously.
Southwest Airlines use behavioural interview questions to assess these traits. When faced with two equally qualified candidates, the one with Southwest's values gets the offer. More importantly, they won't hire qualified candidates who lack these attributes.
Why does this matter? Well, Southwest became the most successful airline in American aviation history, profitable for 31+ consecutive years while competitors operate at losses, and had the fewest customer complaints of any major airline for 18+ years running.
Soft skills matter most when hiring graduates and young employees
When hiring graduates and young employees, soft skills become even more critical. Soft skills are largely fixed by early adulthood, while hard skills can be taught throughout a career.
A recent graduate's technical skills will inevitably be limited. They haven't had years to master specific software, or develop deep expertise in their field. But their soft skills? Those are already established.
You can teach a graduate your systems, processes, and technical skills within months. But you can't teach them to be naturally collaborative, resilient, or emotionally intelligent. Those traits will determine their long-term success and growth potential.
Instead of focusing on degrees, past experience and technical knowledge (which are fairly poor measures of job performance for young graduates), prioritise candidates who demonstrate some of the most essential soft skills:
- Critical thinking and creativity - analysing problems logically and developing innovative solutions
- Communication skills - expressing ideas clearly in presentations, writing, and interpersonal interactions
- Learning agility - quickly mastering new concepts, technologies, and processes
- Resilience and adaptability - bouncing back from setbacks and thriving in changing environments
- Natural collaboration - working effectively in teams through projects, sports, or group activities
- Emotional intelligence - reading social situations, managing emotions, and building relationships
This approach is particularly valuable for graduate schemes and early careers programmes, where you're investing in someone's long-term potential rather than immediate technical contribution.
The best long-term hires often aren't those with the highest grades, but those with the strongest interpersonal skills and growth mindset.”
Ignoring soft skills can have a negative effect on productivity, profitability and retention
Overlooking soft skills doesn't just mean missing out, it actively harms performance. The costs compound across every aspect of your business.
Poor soft skills in just one of your employees can create a domino effect that damages entire teams:
Effects of poor soft skills
- Poor communication → misunderstandings, rework, and project delays
- Lack of teamwork → silos, internal conflict, and duplicated effort
- Low emotional intelligence → poor customer interactions and damaged relationships
- Poor adaptability → resistance to change and missed opportunities
- Weak leadership → low morale, high turnover, and lost productivity
What the data says
- 89% of hiring failures stem from poor soft skills, not technical shortcomings (Leadership IQ, 2021).
- A bad hire costs at least 30% of first-year salary (U.S. Department of Labor, 2024).
- Companies with engaged employees see 23% higher profitability (Gallup, 2023).
- Teams with high emotional intelligence show a 25% boost in performance (Harvard Business Review, 2023).
Technical competence without soft skills creates problems that cost far more than the employee's contribution is worth.
Soft skills are not simply "nice-to-haves", they're critical due to their effect on productivity, profitability, and retention.
Want to ensure your next hires have the right soft skills?
Learn the most effective method for assessing them.
Remote work and AI have made soft skills even more important
Work has fundamentally changed, and with it, the premium on soft skills has only grown.
Remote and hybrid work
The shift to remote and hybrid work has made soft skills absolutely critical.
Without face-to-face interaction, employees need stronger self-motivation to stay productive, clearer communication to avoid misunderstandings, and better self-discipline to manage their time effectively.
Remote work exposes soft skills gaps that might be hidden in an office environment. An employee left to work independently can become extremely unproductive if they lack self-motivation, discipline, or the communication skills to seek help when needed. What might have been manageable with constant supervision becomes a significant performance issue in remote settings.
67% of remote teams cite communication as their biggest challenge (Buffer, 2024). Technology platforms like Teams and Slack help, but only employees with strong collaboration skills can bridge the gap created by physical distance. Those lacking in communication and team working skills are more likely to work in silos and not reach out and collaborate when needed.
Automation and AI
AI tools like ChatGPT have dramatically reduced the importance of many technical skills. Non-coders can now build apps, and Excel novices can perform complex analyses with AI assistance.
As machines handle more routine technical tasks, human work increasingly focuses on areas where soft skills shine: creative problem-solving and critical thinking.
The most valuable employees now combine cognitive ability and strong soft skills with AI tools. As AI becomes more powerful and embedded in workflows, this combination of human intelligence, interpersonal skills, and technological leverage will become the ultimate competitive advantage.
Conclusion and next steps
The evidence is consistent across industries, company sizes, and roles: soft skills are not a secondary consideration in hiring - they are often the primary one. Soft skills determine how much of a success an employee will be.
Knowing soft skills are important is one thing, but knowing which of your candidates have the right ones is another.
There are multiple methods people use to assess soft skills from structured and unstructured interviews to personality assessments.
But, what's the best approach? Well, from working with hundreds of hiring teams we've found the best approach combines two specific methods for maximum effectiveness. To find out more about this approach and the science behind it, read our article on how to assess soft skills in your candidates.
Joshua Hancock
Digital Marketing Manager at Test Partnership. Over 7 years experience as a writer, content strategist, SEO and digital marketer.
