What are the 4 basic differences between hard skills and soft skills

Often employers or hiring officers ask candidates about their hard and soft skills, especially the soft ones. While hard skills are something that is already written on your resume, soft skills really vary from one person to the other.

What really is the difference between hard skills and soft skills?

If we try defining it, hard skills refer to job-related knowledge and abilities, which the employees need, to perform their job duties effectively. On the other hand, soft skills are specific, personal qualities which help employees thrive in the workplace. And, to be a good, able hand in a professional space, one needs to have a good mix of hard and soft skills to achieve professional success.

1. By definition

Hard or technical skills, are job-specific, relevant to each position and seniority level. For example, an accountant needs to know how to reconcile bank statements, while that knowledge is unnecessary for a coder. The latter, on the other hand needs to know coding and programming languages, to get the right job opportunities.

Soft skills are general, and at times behavioural characteristics, that shapes an employee's personality. Regardless of their position or expertise, some soft skills, like diligence, team spirit, etc, one would like to see in all employees regardless of their position or expertise, while other soft skills make sense in certain jobs and are less important in others. For example, if you value collaboration in your company, you want to hire employees who are great team players and can communicate well with others. On the other hand, networking and relationship-building skills might be essential for sales and marketing roles, but irrelevant for engineering roles.

2. By developing skills

While employees develop hard skills through education and on-the-job skills and practice, they develop soft skills through various, life-long personal and professional experiences. For example, marketers can learn marketing techniques and tools by attending a marketing course, whereas collaboration skills or team building spirit can be grown by participating in a sports team, or festivities.

3. By measuring skills

Hard skills are measurable and can be described using numerical or by saying yes or no. On the other hand, soft skills are often intangible or hard to quantify and are usually described with qualitative scales.

4. By evaluation

One can evaluate hard skills, through resumes, portfolios, job-related assignments and specific, role/profession-related questions.

On the other hand, soft skills are better assessed by asking behavioural and situational interview questions, taking soft skill tests and taking into account a person's overall characteristics.

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