Many often say, “communication is key,” which is why employers value those with outstanding social skills. They believe that the ability to communicate effectively outweighs technical expertise. This essay will analyze why this belief is unreasonable.
The prioritisation of recruiting applicants who have social skills will result in an incompetent workforce. Since those with charisma and good communication skills can easily be favoured by their potential clients, there is a high chance that they are not capable of carrying out the assigned duties. Also, some might be able to get away with it through extensive social engineering, which is unfair to other colleagues. Additionally, even if the company acknowledges the poor technical capabilities of those recruits, it still takes a lot of time and resources to train them. Since merit is an important factor, it normally takes up to 6 months to train someone properly. Besides, they would also need a skilled advisor to support them throughout the period.
Furthermore, employing those with a major gap between their specialized skill set and social appeal will adversely affect the workplace. If expertise is not seriously taken into account during the hiring process and remains an ambiguous factor, doing tasks with those individuals often results in an ineffective work environment in the long term. For example, operation within a team requires a certain degree of logical thinking and problem-solving skills to deal with various situations, which might be difficult for this subtype of members to uphold. As a result, they only act as a hindrance to the team. This is also unfair to other workers, since they have to manage more tasks themselves. As such, a recruitment procedure that deemphasizes technical abilities will create an imbalanced workplace.
In conclusion, it is true to state that social skills are highly crucial, but that does not equate to employees with good social abilities deserving more recognition than others. Being outstanding in one field might cause a lot of trouble for the surroundings and for the work environment. Hence, it is also important to assess multiple facets and qualities of a person when hiring a worker.