Professional or life skills: what is more important in the IT industry today and in the future (survey results)
Last weekend, Microsoft held its 16th technology competition for student projects Imagine Cup . Along with other participants, “My Circle” was invited to participate in the round table “Employee of the Future: who will employers look for tomorrow?”. We were asked to highlight the importance of soft skills and hard skills in the IT industry, now and in the future.
To answer this question, we conducted a survey among the users of My Circle and Habrahabra. In total, 3,000 people participated in the survey, we visualized all the answers using infographics, and today we are happy to share the results. We warn: there will be a lot of information.
To begin with, let's see who exactly participated in the survey in order to understand the context in which we will later look at the answers. We see that we have approximately the same sample as in all of our past surveys.
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Two thirds of our respondents are developers.
There are more senior and advanced specialists in total than beginner-level specialists and interns. The vast majority are men.
Every third of the non-million city, every fourth from Moscow. Most work in small private companies. Every tenth is temporarily not working.
The first question we tried to find out how IT specialists distinguish between life skills (soft skills) and professional skills (hard skills), how much they think about this topic. It can be assumed that the more often they think about this difference, the greater the role played by life skills in this case.
The majority (70%) think about the difference in life and professional skills. Women - slightly more than men (76% versus 69%). Most likely, this is due to the difference in the specialties in which women and men work. As we saw in previous polls , men are more concentrated on “technical” positions, and women - on “humanitarian” ones.
In leadership positions, people think about the difference in skills more often than in subordinates, when entering professional life - more often than before. In startups, they think more often (77%) than in other types of organizations, and in freelancing - less often than all (63%).
The sphere in which the specialist works also leaves its mark on the greater or lesser importance of the difference in skills. Eychary and managers distinguish skills much more often than others, specialists in operation - less often than others.
Then we decided to figure out what are life skills (soft skills) in general? Can you make a list of the most important life skills for IT professionals?
Professional skills (hard skills) are those skills that can be acquired through education, which can be measured using formal tests and which are applicable in a particular profession.
Life skills (soft skills) are those skills that are formed over a lifetime, which are difficult to measure with formal tests and which are applicable in all professions.
Life skills are divided into three groups:
1. Communication skills
2. Personality skills
3. Management skills
You could choose as many options as you like. More than half of the votes, with a large margin from the rest, collected the following communication skills: the ability to work in a team, the ability to argue, the ability to listen, the ability to negotiate and negotiate.
All these are teamwork skills, which is not surprising for our IT industry. Especially clearly this sequence of importance of communication skills is typical for developers.
Interesting are some differences in the importance of communication skills in other areas of activity.
Unlike communication skills, there is a much greater variety of answers. Noticeably more than half of all votes gained skill in searching and analyzing information (66%) and time management skill (57%).
But what interesting differences from the overall average was found.
In management skills, the leaders who gained noticeably more than half of the votes turned out to be planning skills (71%).
Finally, we got to the predictions for the future!
For almost all specialties, both types of skills, professional and life, play an important role.
The situation where a cohort that considers life skills more important than professional cohorts, more than a cohort that considers the opposite, is observed only in three specialties: sales, Eychare and management. This is typical both for today and for waiting in the future, where the analyst also joins them.
The greatest dominance of the cohort, which considers professional skills more important than life skills, is observed in mobile development, as well as in telecommunications. However, in the future, such dominance in them is softened, but it is expected to have similar strength in content.
If we look at the dynamics of changes in the relative proportions of cohorts that consider one or other skills more important (we look at the difference between the percentages in the future and the present), we get the following interesting picture.
Practically in all specialties the growth of the relative importance of life skills is expected: the most changes in this area are expected in game development and telecommunications. And the only areas where the opposite is expected, a decrease in the relative importance of life skills, is support and content.
The growth of the relative importance of professional skills is most expected in sales and content. Conversely, the strongest decline in the importance of these skills is expected in game development, telecommunications and analytics.
If we make a very rough generalization, then in general, we see that technical specialties tend to “humanize”, and the humanitarian ones, on the contrary, “technologize”, sometimes with some damage to other skills.
There are a couple of exceptions to this crude conclusion. In management, there is no desire to increase the importance of professional skills, and life skills become more important. In HR, marketing, sales, testing and administration, the importance of both skills is growing.
It is widely believed that the programming skill will soon become a universal skill that will be needed in almost all areas of activity. We decided to test this hypothesis, and that's what we got.
When asked about the need for programming, it was possible to rate from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very necessary). Next, we calculated the weighted average and worked with it.
We see that among the developers is expected a slight decrease in the importance of programming skills, especially in comparison with others in game development. But in all other areas of activity, it is indeed expected that the programming skill will become more popular. This is particularly expected in the field of Eychara.
The results of this question reinforce a crude generalization from the results of the previous one: we see that technical specialties seek to slightly reduce their adaptability, and humanitarian ones, on the contrary, increase.
Let us move from theory and forecasts to directly current practice. Let's see how life and professional skills affect hiring and firing.
As you can see, more than half (59%) of the specialists are directly involved in the selection and evaluation of new employees, two thirds of them are interested in the life skills of the candidate.
The frequency of interest in the life skills of an applicant directly depends on what specialty he is selected for. In principle, we see approximately the same picture as in the survey about the distinction between the two types of skills. When recruiting Eychara, manager, analyst and salespeople, life skills almost always attract attention: they don’t pay only about 10% of cases. When selecting developers for life skills do not pay about 25% of cases.
In the case when candidates have the same professional skills, the choice is based on life skills. And again we see a similar picture: when evaluating an applicant for “humanitarian” specialties, this happens 2-3 times more often than for “technical” ones.
If 59% of specialists participate in the hiring process, then 33% are in the process of dismissal, which is still a pretty impressive number. Both types of skills are affected with dismissal with equal probability.
If we decompose the reasons for dismissal by spheres, we see that there is no such clear picture as in hiring: the reason for dismissal in terms of life skills is not so strongly correlated with the “humanitarianism” of the specialty of the one who participated in the dismissal.
As you can see, more than half of specialists undergo additional training in professional skills, and only a quarter of them do it in life skills. Vocational skills, most learn in courses, and life - on their own. Professional skills at conferences strengthens every second, and life skills - only every fourth. Mentoring as a way of additional education is presented equally there and there. Communities work better with professional skills.
All charts are prepared using the service infogram.com .
To answer this question, we conducted a survey among the users of My Circle and Habrahabra. In total, 3,000 people participated in the survey, we visualized all the answers using infographics, and today we are happy to share the results. We warn: there will be a lot of information.
Who participated in the survey
To begin with, let's see who exactly participated in the survey in order to understand the context in which we will later look at the answers. We see that we have approximately the same sample as in all of our past surveys.
')
Two thirds of our respondents are developers.
There are more senior and advanced specialists in total than beginner-level specialists and interns. The vast majority are men.
Every third of the non-million city, every fourth from Moscow. Most work in small private companies. Every tenth is temporarily not working.
Have you thought about the distinction between hard skills and life skills (soft skills)?
The first question we tried to find out how IT specialists distinguish between life skills (soft skills) and professional skills (hard skills), how much they think about this topic. It can be assumed that the more often they think about this difference, the greater the role played by life skills in this case.
The majority (70%) think about the difference in life and professional skills. Women - slightly more than men (76% versus 69%). Most likely, this is due to the difference in the specialties in which women and men work. As we saw in previous polls , men are more concentrated on “technical” positions, and women - on “humanitarian” ones.
In leadership positions, people think about the difference in skills more often than in subordinates, when entering professional life - more often than before. In startups, they think more often (77%) than in other types of organizations, and in freelancing - less often than all (63%).
The sphere in which the specialist works also leaves its mark on the greater or lesser importance of the difference in skills. Eychary and managers distinguish skills much more often than others, specialists in operation - less often than others.
What is life skills (soft skills)
Then we decided to figure out what are life skills (soft skills) in general? Can you make a list of the most important life skills for IT professionals?
Professional skills (hard skills) are those skills that can be acquired through education, which can be measured using formal tests and which are applicable in a particular profession.
Life skills (soft skills) are those skills that are formed over a lifetime, which are difficult to measure with formal tests and which are applicable in all professions.
Life skills are divided into three groups:
1. Communication skills
2. Personality skills
3. Management skills
What communication skills do you consider the most important in your profession?
You could choose as many options as you like. More than half of the votes, with a large margin from the rest, collected the following communication skills: the ability to work in a team, the ability to argue, the ability to listen, the ability to negotiate and negotiate.
All these are teamwork skills, which is not surprising for our IT industry. Especially clearly this sequence of importance of communication skills is typical for developers.
Interesting are some differences in the importance of communication skills in other areas of activity.
- So, in management, marketing, sales, and Euchar, the ability to negotiate comes first (65-80% of respondents from these areas indicated this skill as important).
- An equally important skill turned out to be in these areas, as well as content, sales skill (20-30% indicated it, 44% in sales)
- For them, as well as for analytics and design, the skill of presentations and public speaking plays an important role (25-35% indicated this skill).
- For them, with the exception of marketing, and also for testers, administrators, support specialists and content, business writing skills turned out to be important (25-35% indicated it).
- For support, marketing, management, sales, and Eychara it is important to be customer- oriented (30-40% indicated this).
- For Eychara one of the most important skills is the skill to build and maintain relationships (70% indicated).
- For salespeople, the ability to work in a team indicated significantly fewer respondents than in all other areas (only 44%)
What personal skills do you consider most important in your profession?
Unlike communication skills, there is a much greater variety of answers. Noticeably more than half of all votes gained skill in searching and analyzing information (66%) and time management skill (57%).
But what interesting differences from the overall average was found.
- For mobile developers, time management skills were in the first place, for managers - the ability to make decisions , for Eycharov - the ability to work with feedback .
- For management, design and eychara, an important role is played by the ability to work with feedback (57-67%).
- Creative thinking is important in marketing, design and content (50-60% indicated this skill).
- Emotion management is important for management, support, content and HR. (37-55%)
- The stress management skill plays a much larger role in support of other areas (47% indicated).
What management skills do you consider most important in your profession?
In management skills, the leaders who gained noticeably more than half of the votes turned out to be planning skills (71%).
- For management, most skills gained noticeably more than half of all votes.
- In HRC, in addition to planning skills , skills for motivating employees and giving feedback are also strongly pronounced (more than 60% indicated).
- In sales, in the only sphere, the planning skill turned out to be far from the first place; instead, the skill of tactical and strategic thinking is there .
Which skills are more important now, and which ones will be more important in the future in your profession?
Finally, we got to the predictions for the future!
For almost all specialties, both types of skills, professional and life, play an important role.
The situation where a cohort that considers life skills more important than professional cohorts, more than a cohort that considers the opposite, is observed only in three specialties: sales, Eychare and management. This is typical both for today and for waiting in the future, where the analyst also joins them.
The greatest dominance of the cohort, which considers professional skills more important than life skills, is observed in mobile development, as well as in telecommunications. However, in the future, such dominance in them is softened, but it is expected to have similar strength in content.
If we look at the dynamics of changes in the relative proportions of cohorts that consider one or other skills more important (we look at the difference between the percentages in the future and the present), we get the following interesting picture.
Practically in all specialties the growth of the relative importance of life skills is expected: the most changes in this area are expected in game development and telecommunications. And the only areas where the opposite is expected, a decrease in the relative importance of life skills, is support and content.
The growth of the relative importance of professional skills is most expected in sales and content. Conversely, the strongest decline in the importance of these skills is expected in game development, telecommunications and analytics.
If we make a very rough generalization, then in general, we see that technical specialties tend to “humanize”, and the humanitarian ones, on the contrary, “technologize”, sometimes with some damage to other skills.
There are a couple of exceptions to this crude conclusion. In management, there is no desire to increase the importance of professional skills, and life skills become more important. In HR, marketing, sales, testing and administration, the importance of both skills is growing.
Do you need programming skills now and will you need them in the future in your profession?
It is widely believed that the programming skill will soon become a universal skill that will be needed in almost all areas of activity. We decided to test this hypothesis, and that's what we got.
When asked about the need for programming, it was possible to rate from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very necessary). Next, we calculated the weighted average and worked with it.
We see that among the developers is expected a slight decrease in the importance of programming skills, especially in comparison with others in game development. But in all other areas of activity, it is indeed expected that the programming skill will become more popular. This is particularly expected in the field of Eychara.
The results of this question reinforce a crude generalization from the results of the previous one: we see that technical specialties seek to slightly reduce their adaptability, and humanitarian ones, on the contrary, increase.
Have you ever participated in the selection and evaluation of new employees, were you interested in their life skills (soft skills)?
Let us move from theory and forecasts to directly current practice. Let's see how life and professional skills affect hiring and firing.
As you can see, more than half (59%) of the specialists are directly involved in the selection and evaluation of new employees, two thirds of them are interested in the life skills of the candidate.
The frequency of interest in the life skills of an applicant directly depends on what specialty he is selected for. In principle, we see approximately the same picture as in the survey about the distinction between the two types of skills. When recruiting Eychara, manager, analyst and salespeople, life skills almost always attract attention: they don’t pay only about 10% of cases. When selecting developers for life skills do not pay about 25% of cases.
Have there been any cases of choosing a candidate for life skills (soft skills) if the professional skills (hard skills) were the same?
In the case when candidates have the same professional skills, the choice is based on life skills. And again we see a similar picture: when evaluating an applicant for “humanitarian” specialties, this happens 2-3 times more often than for “technical” ones.
Have you ever participated in the forced dismissal of your colleagues? The problem in which skills was the main cause of such dismissals?
If 59% of specialists participate in the hiring process, then 33% are in the process of dismissal, which is still a pretty impressive number. Both types of skills are affected with dismissal with equal probability.
If we decompose the reasons for dismissal by spheres, we see that there is no such clear picture as in hiring: the reason for dismissal in terms of life skills is not so strongly correlated with the “humanitarianism” of the specialty of the one who participated in the dismissal.
Have you ever completed additional training on your professional skills (hard skills), what kind of training was it?
Have you ever completed additional life skills training (soft skills), what kind of training was it?
As you can see, more than half of specialists undergo additional training in professional skills, and only a quarter of them do it in life skills. Vocational skills, most learn in courses, and life - on their own. Professional skills at conferences strengthens every second, and life skills - only every fourth. Mentoring as a way of additional education is presented equally there and there. Communities work better with professional skills.
All charts are prepared using the service infogram.com .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/353910/
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