DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones
AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations

Trending

  • Building and Deploying Microservices With Spring Boot and Docker
  • JavaFX Goes Mobile
  • Reducing Network Latency and Improving Read Performance With CockroachDB and PolyScale.ai
  • Google Becomes A Java Developer's Best Friend: Instantiations Developer Tools Relaunched For Free
  1. DZone
  2. Culture and Methodologies
  3. Career Development
  4. Study reveals the key skills for workplace success

Study reveals the key skills for workplace success

Adi Gaskell user avatar by
Adi Gaskell
·
Jul. 26, 14 · Interview
Like (0)
Save
Tweet
Share
3.33K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

Earlier this summer a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit explored the skills required of recent university graduates, and whether they were entering the workforce with those skills or not.  The report found that there was a large skills gap between what higher education produced and what the workplace needed, particularly in softer skills such as collaboration.

Recent research by UC Santa Barbara researchers has confirmed the importance of social skills in a recent study exploring what it is that makes us successful in the workplace.

The study linked the skills children possessed between 1972 and 1992 with their subsequent professional performances in adult life.  One of the more interesting trends to emerge from the study was an increase in the market value of individuals with the magic combination of high cognitive and social skills.

“I did the study in a very similar way to the studies on math scores,” the researcher said. “Every 10 years or so, the U.S. government surveys a representative sample of high school students and has them take tests. Then they follow these people for about 10 years to know how they’re doing in the labor market when they reach their late 20s.”

These data sets were used to determine the relationship between high school status and demand in the workplace.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the research found that the marketplace is crying out for individuals with the ideal mixture of intelligence and social abilities.

Whilst the EIU study mentioned earlier looked specifically at skills such as collaboration, this analysis looked at proxies of social skills, such as participation in sports teams or some other extra curricular leadership role.  This was then compared with the kind of skills required in people’s jobs when they entered the workforce.

Some of these were management positions that required both intelligence and social interaction. Others required one or another type of skill—cognitive ability for, say, number crunching, or strong social skills for positions such as those in sales and marketing. “Using these two different measures of skills, I see exactly the same patterns,” they say. “The people who are both smart and socially adept earn more in today’s workforce than similarly endowed workers in 1980.”

Crucial to success was having the combination of skillsets.  Having one in isolation was shown to endow individuals with about as much success as they did in the past, whilst those with neither intelligence or social skills are doing worse than ever.  The paper concludes by pondering whether people are naturally endowed with strong social skills, or whether it’s something that can be trained.  If the latter is the case, what implications does this have for education policy around the world, both in schools and indeed in the workplace.

Original post
workplace

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Trending

  • Building and Deploying Microservices With Spring Boot and Docker
  • JavaFX Goes Mobile
  • Reducing Network Latency and Improving Read Performance With CockroachDB and PolyScale.ai
  • Google Becomes A Java Developer's Best Friend: Instantiations Developer Tools Relaunched For Free

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: