“There’s not one specific thing or skill people have to have to work for us. But I can tell you why we fire people: soft skills. We hire for hard skills. We fire for soft skills”.

^{_{— Rick Stephens, Senior Vice President of HR, The Boeing Corporation.}}

Casio faced challenges in attracting top talent due to a manual recruitment process and the shift to hybrid work after COVID-19. The company needed a streamlined and efficient recruitment strategy to stay competitive and enhance candidate satisfaction.

1. Overhaul Recruitment Process.

Implemented new HR technology to automate candidate communication and streamline the hiring process. This reduced the manual workload and made interview scheduling easier.

2. Unified Reporting.

Adopted a reporting system for real-time data access, enhancing strategic decision-making and recruitment efficiency.

3. Implemented Video Interviews.

Embraced one-way video interviews, saving time and receiving positive feedback from candidates and hiring managers. It also helped assess how candidates present themselves in a remote environment, which is increasingly relevant with hybrid working.

4. Prioritized Soft Skills.

Shifted focus from strict qualifications to assessing cultural fit and soft skills. This approach ensures candidates align with Casio’s values and work environment, emphasizing attributes like organization, creativity, and tailored communication, which are crucial for a hybrid work setup.

5. Enhanced Workplace Culture.

Focused on improving workplace culture to attract top talent. This led to increased employee satisfaction and positive feedback. Regular surveys indicated high scores and more recommendations for Casio as a desirable workplace.

Soft skills of employees are more valuable than hard skills, and they directly impact company profitability. This conclusion comes from years of research and surveys conducted by Jack and Patti Phillips in collaboration with the ROI Institute.

1️⃣ 90 percent of program evaluations requested by executives focus on soft skills, indicating a need to see their impact and ROI.

2️⃣ Soft skills create the best workplaces, but executives need clear evidence of their value in impact and ROI.

3️⃣ The highest ROI study showed more than 5,000 percent from a leadership program, demonstrating the significant business value of soft skills.

Intelligent conducted a survey, polling 800 U.S. managers, directors, and executives involved in hiring. The study reveals significant gaps in soft skills among recent college graduates (RCG), affecting their employability.

📌 38% of employers avoid hiring recent college graduates in favor of older employees.

📌 58% say they are unprepared for the workforce.

📌 63% of employers believe that RCG can't manage their workload effectively.

📌 52% criticize their communication skills.

Employers report that Gen Z candidates often struggle with eye contact, make unreasonable salary demands, dress inappropriately for interviews, refuse to turn on the camera during virtual interviews, use inappropriate language, and sometimes bring a parent to a job interview.

This highlights the critical need for businesses to emphasize soft skills development in their recruitment and training strategies to better integrate recent graduates into the workplace.