I was recently talking with the Vice President of a very large engineering company. He is over all HR and Training for North and South America.
He said in the 1990′s they looked for technical people who already had 70% of the technical skills and then the remaining 30% in people skills.
Now 20 years later they look for a degree but 30% in the technical skills is acceptable with the balance of 70% in people skills.
I, of course asked, “why such a shift?” He said, “Because it is much easier to teach additional techical skill than to teach people skills.”
I though this was profound and needed to be shared.
What has been your experience?