Bridge Firm Recovery February 2019

Bridge Firm Recovery February 2019

Cover story, continued ...

WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?

a top school and a decade of experience, but that experience won’t make up for the problems that will arise if a new hire doesn’t click well with the rest of your team or isn’t eager to take care of your customers. When a job demands a set of hard skills, your strategy should be to hire for personality and skills. Does this mean it will be harder to find the right person for the position? Absolutely. And while it can be stressful to have an open position for a long time, it’s always worth waiting to find the right person. When hiring managers look only at academic background and technical prowess, they often overlook plenty of promising candidates who need only an opportunity to learn before they can excel. But it is perfectly reasonable to insist that candidates come to the table with certain skills needed to succeed in the position. Be sure your company is bringing in the right people by learning to balance soft skills and hard skills when evaluating candidates.

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Empathy

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Communication

Organization

Flexibility

Depending on the position you’re trying to fill, you may have flexibility when it comes to hard skills. If a dental office is hiring a front desk receptionist, it’s important this person be organized, friendly, self-motivated, and have strong communication skills. They might not have experience at a dentist’s office or know how to use the software, but if they have the right soft skills, they can learn and adapt quickly to the environment. On the other hand, if you are hiring a computer programmer to run your website, you wouldn’t want to spend time teaching the person you hired how to code with HTML or CSS. The programmer you hire should come equipped with these skills. Certain hard skills are essential to the job. That said, proficiency in hard skills should not be ranked above personality and culture fit. A candidate may come with a degree from

Creativity

Enthusiasm Work ethic

Team-orientation

Responsibility Compassion

Self-motivation

Attention to detail

HARD SKILLS

Hard skills are teachable abilities that can be learned through training or experience. Necessary hard skills will vary depending on what industry you work in. An accountant needs hard skills in QuickBooks and mathematics, while someone who works in online marketing will need to be proficient in social media outreach and SEO best practices.

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Foreign languages

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Here are some other examples of hard skills:

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