Public speaking, persuading people, working as a team, having knowledge in social sciences or knowing several languages are soft skills that will be increasingly important in technology work. This knowledge gives value to the development of artificial intelligence. Those with these skills enter a profile known as hybrid professions.
“Leadership, knowing how to work in a team, motivation, communication or knowledge in humanities are skills that we increasingly look for within the talent that enters the company, beyond prioritizing titles we are looking for the capabilities of our collaborators to speak for them,” he said to Expansion, Ana Paula Assis, president of IBM Latin America.
The human resources analysis firm Burning Glass Technologies foresees that these types of professions will have their boom between 2020 and 2025, although since 2015 they have started talking about these types of professions. In the next five years, these jobs would grow by 21%, especially in technological job offers, where the growth of 10% is expected.
“Young talent, well trained in technical issues, but also well trained in more social, leadership, knowing how to work in a team is essential to develop more and better technology in the market. The value that talent will have in the near future will be great, and we don’t just talk about young people, we talk about adults and older adults that all they want to do is grow, ”Luiz Meisler, executive president of Oracle Latin America, told Expansión.
Technology companies are looking for software engineers and project managers capable of providing creativity, visual design, and teamwork. For this reason, hybrid professions are increasingly important in the field of information technology.
Mobile application development also requires hybrid professions. The talent for programming is no longer enough, you also need to know what content they support, create an attractive and even marketing interface. And part of this change, according to specialists, has to do with the fact that these technologies or equipment did not exist before and therefore it was not necessary for human capital to have a combination of skills.
In 2010, according to the Burning Glass study, there were only 150 vacancies for people who were able to apply statistics to commercial problems, in 2018 this type of employment grew to more than 1.7 million job offers. Therefore, data scientists grew their participation, both in technology and in technology departments of very diverse industries. And in fact, marketing managers, with experience in data analysis, often earn 40% more than those who don’t.
“The interest in having a more qualified talent is generating that we within the company are training more people, regardless of their age or academic degree, the call is in some way open and what it contemplates is that they have analysis skills, desire to excel and teamwork skills, ”said Meisler.
According to the Burning Glass study, about 42% of all employees could one day be replaced by artificial intelligence. On the contrary, hybrid jobs are so complex and depend heavily on expert judgments and skills such as imagination and empathy that foresees growth of 12% in the next two years and up to 21% in 2025.
“Schools will have to reconfigure the way in which they train their students and companies will have to form training cadres both in their social and technical areas, because technology will have new challenges, both for human resources personnel, such as for engineers who are dedicated to developing software, ”said Assis.
Among the soft skills most sought in technology companies, according to LinkedIn, are knowing how to manage time, adaptive capacity, collaboration, empathy, persuasion, and creativity. In addition, Assis points out that one of the most relevant is the willingness to learn.
“As technology advances, the team will have to be re-trained, so the company’s talent must be willing to collaborate both to take courses and to teach the skills to other people on their team,” Assis points out.
Now, on the skills that are more attractive in those social area positions, there is the ability to understand how artificial intelligence works, critical reasoning, and know how to manage cloud applications.