Including relevant soft or people skills in one’s resume is arguably more important than ever as the “belief” or “participant” economy is undeniably here. Today organizations of all kinds are paying more attention than ever before to their brand promise or what they stand for in response to what customers believe or feel about them. Related to this, organizations are also paying increasing attention to how customers choose to engage with them as participants in exchanges of value, as potential brand advocates, or both.
This shift in thinking is gradually working its way through every part of the economy (for-profit and non-profit), in both subtle and significant ways, and is requiring that organizations think differently about how they do business, including the kinds of skill sets that they seek in job candidates. Workers in this changing environment are increasingly being asked to apply higher levels of relational skills in interacting with this new kind of customer as well as with co-workers, business partners and vendors. As a result and when evaluating which types of key words to use when preparing a resume, job applicants will increasingly need to consider relevant soft skills, in addition to technical skills, to compete effectively. Multiple surveys continue to affirm the importance of soft skills among employers, who in general rate them as equally valuable to technical skills and sometimes more so.