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You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

blog.chrisdrane.com

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Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#21

Post by Strilanc »

stg wrote: post #14
AtlanteanTec wrote: post #6

Thank you for this post. This actually resonated with me personally, because I felt like you were describing me in high school. I knew I was smart, I could ace tests easily without studying - and I didnt see the point in trying. And like you have said, I did not know anything about soft skills. No one ever talks about things like this. I feel like there is a disparity between the curriculum in schools and the skills…

Sorry for the diversion, but what is/was it like to be able to ace a test without really studying for it? The only emotion I can ever recall feeling when staring down at an exam is abject fear as every fact I knew drained out of my head. I was always a relatively bright kid, but never super smart. When I worked hard, I got top grades and when I slacked, I didn't. At some point I stopped working hard and drifted throu…

I always found tests kind of... interesting. I stressed about missing them, but learned to not worry about taking them. It helped that I was in CS/math/science courses. Questions tended to be semi-fun puzzles instead of memorization.

Actually, one of my favorite memories from university is from an algorithms test. We had to find nearest smallest neighbors, or something like that, in O(n lg n) time. Our professor was good, and an algorithms guy, so I was surprised when I realized it could be done with just two sweeps across the list [O(n)]. When I showed him (I was wondering if the question mentioning 'divide and conquer' was a hint or a restriction), he couldn't believe he'd missed it.

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#23

Post by RyJones »

mathattack wrote: post #12
jstanley wrote: post #2

"With the exception of the STEM fields, I would argue that soft skills actually are more important than how smart you are." So you're saying "apart from fields where you have to be smart, it doesn't matter if you're smart"?

Take software development as an example. Half the battle is knowing what needs to be built, half the battle is knowing how to build it. The former aspect takes a lot of people skills. If it's a big project, the latter takes it too. I would guess that building bridges is similar. The best doctors have people skills too. "Bedside manner"

The third half is being able to explain / budget / justify / sell your approach. That might be subsumed in your second half, not sure.

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#24

Post by mathattack »

RyJones wrote: post #23
mathattack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take software development as an example. Half the battle is knowing what needs to be built, half the battle is knowing how to build it. The former aspect takes a lot of people skills. If it's a big project, the latter takes it too. I would guess that building bridges is similar. The best doctors have people skills too. "Bedside manner"

The third half is being able to explain / budget / justify / sell your approach. That might be subsumed in your second half, not sure.

It wasn't, but it should have been.

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#25

Post by gadders »

sieisteinmodel wrote: post #3

Makes it sound as if those things were mutually exclusive. They are not. I don't like the attitude of this article. Good soft skills will not compensate lack of smartness. This might not appear in a job interview (although good interviewers will notice), but it definately will later on. Thus: also read books.

> Good soft skills will not compensate lack of smartness

Ish. So for instance you can't be a complete fool, but if you hire people that are smarter than you are, and get them to work together as a team then soft skills can compensate for lack of smartness.

Obviously, to do this you need to have a realistic view of your own limitations. Dunning-Kruger sufferers need not apply.

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#26

Post by candybar »

The problem with articles like this is that it inspires precisely the wrong reaction. The best way to develop "soft skills" of the sort that matter is to stop caring about developing "soft skills" and to be genuine and be in touch with who they are internally. Don't worry about presenting yourself - care about who you are inside and seek to present it genuinely. Social fluence comes naturally when you stop pretending.

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#27

Post by contrarain »

I found the quoted verse at the top so wrong, I had to create a throwaway to comment.

You're so smart, you're studying, you're 52, and when you die, you'll have nothing to clutch in your grave but your degrees.

Being 52 and in school is fucking awesome. You're old, you're not doing it because it's making you money. You're doing it for the pursuit of knowledge. You're doing it to learn from the fruits of labor of all that have come before you. You might make another discovery. You might not. But at this point, uncovering new things for its own sake is just fucking awesome.

But, says Kanye, but, says the rich and famous role model of yours: I'm smooth, I hustle, and when I die, I'm hugging my platinums in my grave. Maybe I'll even have a statue of me on my tombstone.

Maybe there's a subtext that I'm not getting. Maybe this is an alcoholic 52 year old who decided on a whim that he's gonna get smarter and somehow that's going to make him rich, and that's what West is talking about. But that's not what you're quoting. What you're quoting is a reflecting of your acknowledgement of that belief.

You're smart. Soft skills are important. Know what, I'm smart too, and I have soft skills, and I find the mentality conveyed in those verses pure, culture-destroying toxic. Maybe you're after hustle... But hustle is not "soft skills".

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#28

Post by thatswrong0 »

> The number one way to ace an interview is to get the other person to like you.

Anecdotal evidence: I'm a college student and got my software engineering internship this summer because, according to the recruiter, I was better at communicating and more personable than the other candidates. Among people in my major (CS), I would say I'm pretty average in terms of intellect, so I actively work at these sorts of 'soft' skills to give myself some advantage.

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#29

Post by gadders »

seanccox wrote: post #13

If the thesis is, 'people need soft skills to get and succeed at their jobs', then wouldn't the article serve that thesis by articulating how one could obtain those skills? Instead, we have a citation of Kanye West, and as a result, the tone of the article is fairly anti-intellectual. For high school students looking to develop soft skills: http://bit.ly/1b60sBm http://bit.ly/13Rjiay http://abt.cm/14nWouk

Also "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/6-habits-of-remarkabl...

Re: You're Smart. So What?: Examining the Importance of Soft Skills

#30

Post by AtlanteanTec »

stg wrote: post #14
AtlanteanTec wrote: post #6

Thank you for this post. This actually resonated with me personally, because I felt like you were describing me in high school. I knew I was smart, I could ace tests easily without studying - and I didnt see the point in trying. And like you have said, I did not know anything about soft skills. No one ever talks about things like this. I feel like there is a disparity between the curriculum in schools and the skills…

Sorry for the diversion, but what is/was it like to be able to ace a test without really studying for it? The only emotion I can ever recall feeling when staring down at an exam is abject fear as every fact I knew drained out of my head. I was always a relatively bright kid, but never super smart. When I worked hard, I got top grades and when I slacked, I didn't. At some point I stopped working hard and drifted throu…

Thanks for bringing this up. I cant speak for everyone else but I can tell you that I didnt always use to be good at test taking. In fact, whenever I get on this topic, I always talk about the story about a time when I moved to a different country in the middle of a school year and I moved there just it time for the comprehensive mid-year test in which I got the lowest test scores of any test in my life. And I mention that because after that, I had a bit of a revelation as far as how to prepare for tests.

I picked up the knack for listening to what teachers emphasized while teaching and correlated that to the home work, drew parallels and 9 times out of 10, most of what they had in common was on the test - so no extra studying needed. It was easier for things like Maths, Physics and Chemistry because you have a formula to use - and all the questions that revolved around these forumlae had keywords as far as what facts you have to use and what you need to find. Once you see the pattern, you can apply the forumula (which you've probably seen at least a dozen times in class and/or homework) at this point and its just applying it.

As far as things like vocabulary or other word definitions go, I've learned how to photographically remember things so I could breeze through a textbook and remember key words and/or key dates and look for those in questions on the test.

I dont mean to say that it is either hard or only gifted people can do it, I think everyone has their own unique learning style and once they figure out what works for them, tests can be easy.

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