Soft skills can save your job from the machines but young professionals are severely short of it

• Nearly one-third of the millenials across the globe think that education has helped them gain technical skills, but they lack soft skills.
  
• Soft skills like strategic thinking, negotiation techniques, networking skills, business communications, and analytical thinking have been the high-in-demand employability skills.
  
• Working professionals will need to re-skill themselves every 3-4 years so as to evolve in a competitive working environment.
  
• A majority of the respondents are confident on their tech skills.

Millennials have been quick to learn the technical skills but in an era where technology is eating away jobs, the much-needed soft skills, which may give people the edge over the machines, is a rare commodity.

Nearly one-third of the millenials across the globe think that education has proved beneficial for them to attain technical skills, but they still lack soft skills for higher employability. While merely 15% of the millenials feel that the education system has helped in their holistic development, revealed HBR Ascend Youth Skills Survey 2019.

The survey by the learning platform, comes in the back on World Youth Skilling Day. According to the conclusions drawn from the survey, the growing industry demand for changing skills in the job market has accelerated the need for reskilling courses.

This includes enhancing skill sets in data science, analytical thinking, creative and innovative thinking, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation.

However, even soft skills like strategic thinking, negotiation techniques, networking skills, business communications, and analytical thinking have been the high-in-demand, the survey noted. “Millennials understand the impact of technology and automation on the future of work and highly value knowledge over current credentials, Vivek Chachra, Country Manager (India), Harvard Business Publishing said.

Not the first witness

In India, soft skills are the most in-demand skills across industries, according to a LinkedIn report on ‘Global Talent Trends 2019.’ Creativity has been the most in demand, since this is what machines can’t replicate.

The future will demand professionals to re-skill themselves every 3-4 years so as to evolve in a competitive working environment, ET reported citing Zairus Master, CEO, Shine Learning, a global education services provider. Given that, online learning is also gaining momentum among millenials in India.

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