Hard Skills and Soft Skills: what are the main differences?

Every area of a company has specific characteristics, and the professionals who work in them need a combination of skills necessary to fulfill their tasks. Because of this, it is necessary to constantly study and improve your hard and soft skills, which are now so requested by HR teams.

Hard skills and soft skills, consecutively called technical and behavioral skills, help identify the main competencies required for a certain position. And, typically, they are filters in selection processes.

As skills are constantly developing to keep up with technology and the job market, most companies provide professional training.

This can be much more effective with the implementation of simulation training. Thus, delivering assertive results that guide the manager regarding the skills developed.

In this article, we will explain the main differences between the concepts of hard and soft skills and the development of skills using simulation training.

What are Hard Skills

Hard Skills, or professional technical skills, are all knowledge learned in classrooms, degrees, specializations. In short, it's any and all knowledge that can be proven through diplomas, evaluations, or tests.

Thus, to start applying technical knowledge, you need to have a good base of information. And the larger this base, the better the professional's level of performance.

For a while, hard skills were the main source of candidate analysis, as they are easier to measure.

Some examples of technical skills are:

• Mastery of foreign languages;
• Programming;
• Advanced Excel proficiency;
• People management and project management.

What is a Soft Skill

Soft Skills, or a professional's behavioral skills, are linked to their mental abilities and capacity to deal with emotions.

Therefore, behavioral skills can hardly be developed automatically. But they can be improved through lectures, workshops, and training.

Although we all have social skills, to identify soft skills, a careful look at oneself is necessary. Thus, often certificates or qualifications are not enough to recognize soft skills, which tend to be better highlighted in dynamics, behavioral and psychological tests, for example.

Some of the best-known soft skills are:

• communication;
• leadership;
• organization;
• proactivity;
• and conflict resolution.

The development of skills in simulation training

Simulations can be used both in employee training and in candidate recruitment. Because of this, HR professionals know that they can increasingly rely on technology to accelerate and improve their hiring processes and internal training.

Training through simulation allows the employee to have a more active participation than traditional theory and practice allow. In addition, all responses are measured, delivering indicators of improvement or strengths of each trainee.

This means that simulation training is more immersive and ensures more realistic contexts, leaving participants more enthusiastic and engaged.

When we think about recruitment, simulations allow for quickly filtering out candidates who don't have the specific requirements through analytical tests. Thus, we can conclude that the continuous development of technical and behavioral skills is fundamental to ensure greater hiring probabilities.

Moreover, there are numerous national and international surveys that indicate which skills are being most requested by the job market. So, you can base yourself on these surveys to chart a path for professional training and development.

Whether through simulation, lecture, workshop, test, or dynamics, continue seeking technical knowledge and self-knowledge to build a solid foundation for your career.

If you have any questions, contact one of our specialists. OGG is a pioneer in developing business games and simulators on a 100% web platform.

OGG's business simulation tools enable the integration of various theoretical elements with business practice.

Leave a comment telling us: Which skill do you find harder to develop: Soft or Hard? Share this post with someone who needs to understand the importance of professional skills!