- [Announcer 1] Future Jobs is made possible by BNY Mellon of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

And with these major funders.

And these generous supporters.

(bright music) Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) - I am always looking for someone that has a positive attitude.

- I think being able to relate to somebody or empathize with their situation is really important.

- Folks have to be team players.

- Most of us are familiar with the importance of technical skills, which would be the specific knowledge and abilities needed to succeed in a particular job.

There's not as much focus on soft skills, what should be the interpersonal skills and personality traits, that you really need to work well with others.

- I wouldn't probably be in college right now, honestly.

I mean, I'm smart, but like you can't get far without communication.

- In AI, some of the skills that are most important are still innovation and creativity.

- Welcome to Boys & Girls Club, we're here to present you about flowers.

- I'm not a huge fan of the word soft skills.

I think it brings a negative connotation that they're easy, that they are sometimes maybe not as valued as technical or hard skills.

I prefer to use terms like success skills, or social intelligence.

- [Announcer 2] We can make our best guesses about what kind of technical skills would be relevant in the job market of the future.

But the truth is no one knows.

What will be relevant is your adaptability, and your problem solving skills and your critical thinking.

If you're able to work on those skills now, you'll be able to adapt to whatever the job market throws at you.

(upbeat music) - Many individuals will point to the mid sixties, mid to late sixties, the United States Army, they're usually given credit for coming up with the term soft skills.

The army was trying to identify what are skills that they needed in future leaders, not about driving a tank or shooting a sniper rifle, or repairing a piece of machinery.

This was all about skills that were needed to lead, to motivate, to organize.

(gentle music) - I think soft skills are the qualities that you kind of bring to the table to help you accomplish something.

So, that could be getting a job, working on a team.

(gentle music) - I believe in a time where we're getting used to technology and technology taking over certain jobs, that I think that it's important that those interpersonal skills are still being taught to people.

- I would think about, you know, a good posture, eye contact, greeting people, understanding how to shake hands, just those kind of etiquette things that sometimes we kind of take for granted.

- Some of the ones that we use every day are things like collaboration and communication.

Some of the ones that are more part of the tech industry or are part of workforce are things like innovation, and flexibility, motivation.

(upbeat music) - I always defer to the World Economic Forum.

In 2020, they put out a list of 10 skills that were needed for the future workforce.

Things like flexibility and adaptability, you'll see complex problem solving, you'll see communication, interpersonal, being able to relate, influence others, other skills such as being a lifelong learner, the ability to continually adapt and approve.

(gentle music) - Teaching hard skills today, probably, but most likely will change in the future.

So we need to teach soft skills that can be timeless, like showing up to work on time, how to get along with colleagues, looking people in the eyes and giving them a handshake and saying hello to them.

Those skills today are timeless.

Hard skills are not timeless.

They're here today.

They're gone tomorrow.

So if we teach this hard skill today, it will change 5, 10, 15 years from now.

But the soft skills of being dependable, having a good work ethic, those are timeless, and will never change.

(soft gentle music) - The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a lot of people being isolated, especially if they don't live with others.

That cut down on the amount of interpersonal communication, and face-to-face interactions with others that they had.

(gentle music) - With the advent of technology, we've been able to expand our global knowledge of interacting with individuals across the globe and not just with individuals who are in an office right next door.

The drawback would be the communication, defaulting to a text when a live either phone or in-person conversation is warranted, especially when delivering difficult news or very nuanced conversations.

- I do believe that one of the most important soft skills is communication.

Coming off of the COVID-19 pandemic we've all been at home and we have lost some of those skills We haven't been able to connect with each other how we usually are.

- Teaching middle school, I do feel it's really important to teach soft skills.

These students are addicted to their cell phones and video games and they know skills that I have no idea about, but it's really important to teach them how to be a human being, work with others, take the leadership position when needed and be able to be a team player.

(soft gentle music) - I think educators are being a little bit more strategic about how they're embedding those skills into everyday curriculum.

And so, you see a lot of the more hands-on learning, the problem-based learning.

That's getting students to talk more about things and to elicit conversations around how you can be better at those things.

- Technology really helps expand knowledge and experiences, but we wanna teach the middle school students how to be able to communicate and work with others in person as well.

- It's a struggle to convince 18 to 22 year olds that communication is as important as coding, that conflict negotiation is as important as analytical skills.

- So, has anyone heard any horror stories about like any of your friends not getting a job because of what they wore?

There's a lot of connection to what skills are necessary to be successful in life period, you know, to be community ready and to be prepared for a job, whether you're working at, you know, retail or fast food.

Being nice to one another, and you knowing how to work in a team, those are all different things that I believe are super important.

You know, whether you're a 15 year old, you know, entering the 10th grade or, you know, 25 year old, that's coming out of college.

(gentle trumpet music) - Hello, and welcome to this installment of the Future Grind Podcast.

I'm your host, Ryan O'Shea, and today we're going to continue to discuss how the future of science and technology are going to impact your life.

I am the host and producer of the Future Grind Podcast, which explores the future of science and technology, particularly about how it's gonna impact human society going forward.

Historically, people got ahead by hyper specializing.

They learn all they could about one thing.

They dive into that and reach the top of their field.

That's a gamble going forward now, because you're not sure if what you end up specializing in is going to be relevant.

Our school system and university system today mainly focuses on teaching technical skills.

And I feel like there's a misconception that a lot of people have that if they're not born with soft skills, these things like effective communication and leadership skills, they'll never have them.

And I completely disagree with that.

You can learn these skills, you can practice these skills.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - My name is Don DaRe, and I'm the president and CEO of Concensus Technologies.

We specialize in identity and access management, cyber security and hosting.

(upbeat music) Soft skills are the skills that we want to teach our employees that are above and beyond the technical things that they need to know to perform their jobs, like being accountable and showing up on time.

We act as a team and we are humbly confident.

(upbeat music) I was taught early on in my career that to be the complete package, you had to have the technical knowledge to be able to do your job, but you also needed to be able to communicate with people and have those soft skills.

When we're interviewing somebody for the first time, we always ask the same first question, what do you know about Concensus?

(upbeat music) So we want them to do that research and take a look at our company, understand what we do, to try to make sure that they know what they're getting into.

(upbeat music) When we take a look at two candidates that they have the same set of skills, but they may have different technical skills or soft skills, we're going to take a look at which one's going to have the capacity to learn more and to grow.

(upbeat music) - My name is Phil Light.

Somewhere along the way, I started to become an engineer, and eventually a programmer.

My role here is to be a program manager.

Remember how many people are not like us in the programming industry.

And so it's really, really important for us to remember that people do have very diverse backgrounds in every different way.

- I think it's important for everyone to have good communication and problem solving skills.

I say soft skills are skills that you learn through experience in life that helps you network, communicate and become interpersonal with not only your customers or whatever job you're doing, but the society as a whole.

(gentle music) - So when you apply for a job, what's on your resume and what's likely to get you an interview is going to be your technical skills.

They lookout for that part of the process.

But once you get into the interview, what's going to get you that job is going to be your soft skills.

It's going to be how that you show them you interact with others, how you communicate, how you work, and how you learn.

And this means working on your problem solving, and your critical thinking skills and learning how to learn.

(upbeat music) - AMPCO is a steel manufacturing company that makes forge and cast rolls as well as FEP, which stands for forge engineer products for the oil and gas industry.

Our core business is the roll business where we make work rolls and backup rolls for other manufacturers.

Our headquarters is here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in Carnegie.

I am involved in the hiring process with the initial resume review.

Whenever you apply to a job, I will get the resumes across in our system, our HR system, and I will review those resumes.

If we're talking about the union workers that are working in the plants, we're looking for an array of skills, whether people are good with their hands, and they've done work in a similar environment like a manufacturing environment, or in our case, a steel making plant.

But at the same time, those folks have to be team players.

They have to be someone that's good communicators.

They have to be someone that is really trainable.

- I think I was very personable during my interview, showing my personality through making sure that they understand that I do have the technical skills that are needed for the position, but also, I have the personality that would fit in with the company.

- I always look to see what kind of extracurriculars people do.

If people are Boy Scouts and they've made Eagle Scout, that's a really cool thing.

If people have volunteer experiences, that's a great thing.

Myself personally, I volunteer with Special Olympics and it's something that I've seen on some other people's resumes.

And it's an immediate connection with that person.

(upbeat music) If two people come in and they have the same exact technical background, same education, same upbringing, everything like that as far as their actual technical skills, and there is one person that is a much better soft skilled person, they're much more engaged, they're much more friendly, seeming, they're much more openly communicating with me, that person is almost always gonna get the job.

- So I originally applied to the online application for the safety specialist position, but I also had network connections.

I'm very big into being on LinkedIn and connecting with certain people within companies, and even if you don't know someone that works for that company, I mean, you could reach out and see if you have a similar connection with them.

(upbeat music) - Any job, you need to be able to adapt and kind of change with the environment of how the business is doing, how things are working with the outside world.

In future, you're probably looking at more and more advanced technologies, and this will allow people to advance their own skill sets, and make sure that they stay up with those times so that they're not out of the job.

(gentle music) - My name is Nicole McLean, and I'm the general manager of two cafes in the Pittsburgh area, Mediterra Cafe Sewickley, and Mediterra Cafe in Mount Lebanon.

I've been in the service industry for 10 years.

My father started a bread bakery 20 years ago.

So, all throughout high school, I was working in the customer service business.

I did all aspects of it.

I packed bread.

I answered phones.

I delivered bread to customers.

I graduated high school, then went to college, graduated college.

And as soon as I graduated, I said, dad, I want to come work for you.

You definitely have to have patience.

I think you have to have understanding of other people's lives because a lot of people have things going on all the time, and you need to build good relationships with your staff, so they want to be there and they're loyal and they become passionate about what they're doing because you're passionate about your own business.

I am always looking for someone that has a positive attitude because I feel like that affects everybody else that they're around.

Working for a family business is a lot different than working in corporate America.

So someone that understands things day to day are gonna be a little bit different.

And we definitely want someone that will be reliable and show up on time because we are in the service industry, and you know, we're short-staffed, we have been the last few years.

If someone is an hour late, it could throw us off for the entire day.

When I came into the role as being a manager, I didn't necessarily think soft skills would be the most important factor in hiring staff.

I thought more experience would be better, but now I'm realizing that soft skills is probably the most important because you can teach somebody anything, but that's really hard to teach.

(bright music) In regards to soft skills and my own personal ones, I think my top three are time management, decisiveness, and being able to work under pressure.

Being that I have three kids and I run two businesses, I really have to learn to manage my time, and I have to make decisions quickly.

So I feel like I've become very decisive.

(Nicole chuckles) (gentle music) - I want to talk about interview.

What is an interview?

Interview is like that first impression.

It's an opportunity to introduce yourself and to make a first impression.

I'm doing a soft skills workshop with students here at the Penn State Readiness Institute.

We're going to spend some time here doing some mock interviews and understanding is sometimes you do have to interview through Zoom or through another medium.

However, it's about your mindset whenever you're interviewing.

You know, you want to be in the interview thinking like, man, can they see my sweat pants?

- We have real professionals come in and work with students on mock interviews, teach them about financial literacy skills.

We have them come in and teach them what it's like to set up your own business, the steps to do those type of, skills they need to be successful no matter what they want to do in life.

- I do believe that children started learning soft skills at a very young age.

I just think that they don't know that they're actually learning those soft skills.

Do you know how long we've had this summer Readiness Institute?

- For one year.

- As a soft skill, I think that people mostly need kindness.

I know that that might not come off as a traditional soft skill, but it's something that we've been missing after the pandemic, and we've gone through a very trying and divisive time.

We do not have any time for questions today, but I appreciate your time, and we will be getting back to you shortly, okay?

- [Interviewee] That's all good.

- Thank you so much for coming.

You have a good one.

- Thank you too.

- I'm a talker.

I love people.

I love community.

I love talking to people.

I think I come off pretty confident and just the way that I speak, thanks to my mom.

I think when you use soft skills in like different scenarios that the right ones, they can come off very professional to adults, even though I'm only 17.

And sometimes they might think I'm older, and I'm like, oh, cool, thank you.

It'll kind of help you build a connection with adults.

- I'm a good leader.

I'm also an extremely good communicator, and I like to talk a whole lot.

Have you given any feedback of how this program could improve?

- I have not yet.

Being adaptable is my like most important soft skill to me, being a creative thinker, and just like dependable.

Those are definitely my three main soft skills that I feel like are the most important I have.

- So, thank you so much for your time today.

- Thank you, sir.

- All right.

- Take care.

Have a good day too.

- We're at the Estelle Boys & Girls Club at the Artificial Intelligence Pathways Institute camp.

And this is a three-week program where kids get to come and learn about artificial intelligence, get to learn different skills about presenting, the different parts and concepts in AI.

And at the end, they get to come up with a project and present it.

- Okay, I'm going to go first.

So when we present, we're gonna present whatever comes up on the screen, we're gonna talk about it.

Our students are learning to be flexible, and to be learners.

I think being someone who is continually learning, who understands that things are changing rapidly, and that not everyone knows everything, so that's something we do in all of our programs across Boys and Girls clubs of Western Pennsylvania STEM Program.

We really want to teach that failure is part of the process.

The process of us learning these things is that some of us, it comes innately to.

And one of our young men doing the presentations was really able to engage, he's a natural performer.

Who wins this presentation?

It's probably who's best at telling a story.

So, tell me...

There are other students who might be brilliant and engage students, but that they have trouble really engaging an audience, or being louder.

One of my feedback is you two are brilliant.

Every time I talk to you, you are brilliant, but no one's gonna hear your brilliance if you don't speak up.

- I did this program summer of 2019.

Each week, we would have a game where we would come up with something random to talk about, and then we would discuss it for one minute, and make sure we were keeping good eye contact with our peers, being loud and being focused.

And that helped with my presentation skills.

And we also built our team building skills and teamwork because we have to work with each other on our projects and keep each other accountable.

- I just love to talk and I love talking to other people.

So it's like a second home to me to present.

So, I just find it easy.

That's actually a good one, polluted water.

But I do understand how that could feel like there's everybody's staring at you, and like, you just have all this pressure to like do good.

You don't want to like mess up or anything.

So it's probably hard.

- I'm also an extrovert.

I do love to talk a lot, but then when you're up in front of a group of people for me, I'm a bit shaky on it.

May not be the best, but I'm still getting it done.

They gotta hit the ball, right?

I don't like going solo, really.

I love working in groups.

I think it fits me best because then you get to really figure out who you're working with in a sense.

And you basically get to know people skills.

- My collaboration skills, I would say definitely improved while I was here.

Collaboration, communication, I would say that it's extremely important, especially in like for my future where I am in my internship, I know that it's really important to be able to communicate effectively with those that you work around, and in the work environment.

(gentle music) - I work with the Neighborhood Learning Alliance.

I'm a college success coach.

NLA works with students, underprivileged students, normally students of color, and just gives them different opportunities in education and career exploration and mentoring-ship.

- One of the first things we did when we first started the NLA program, so they have like a training, it's about two weeks, with Partner4Work, and they teach us on how to compose emails, how to professionally dress.

- I feel like through learning soft skills, I most definitely learned a few better ways to talk to teachers.

- We show them their leadership potential.

We definitely do teamwork and team-building.

We've had students, some amazing students that because of this, when they write their essays for scholarships, or an essay just to get into college, they talk about this experience.

And I think that pushes them over the top.

(upbeat music) - My name is Juan Perez.

I'm the senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania.

We're trying to open up opportunities for our young people and let them see the opportunities that are out there for them.

- Yeah, you want to be innovative and creative.

- Not everybody is gonna be an artificial intelligence programmer, not everybody's gonna go into coding, but the leadership skills, communication, problem solving, those are skills that they can take with them anywhere they go.

Historically, a lot of our young people come from communities that were at a disadvantage, you know, through education, through opportunities, access for them to programs.

So we want to eliminate all of those barriers.

(upbeat music) We have a wonderful program called Career Works, and they go through all of those skills with our young people, how to create a cover letter, how to do a resume, how to go to an interview, questions to even ask the interviewer, you know, when the interview is done.

And these are skills that I see adults don't even have in these days.

(upbeat music) Yeah, I've seen it happen where they take these skills and bring them back and teach them to their parents, their grandparents, and say, hey, this is what I learned.

- Can I explain?

- Yeah, I want you to explain that because that's a good thing.

I think any student in our society today are faced with many disadvantages.

So, I think that it's not just this focus on students of color, but that is a big part of our program.

So I think what we do is we bring all these students together, and we let them see that you all have so much in common.

They're always learning from each other, which I think is great.

- And while you absolutely need the technical skills for any specific job you want to do, those skills are changing, and that knowledge might not be relevant in a few years.

- Soft skills are essential skills that people need when they're working with other people and working with each other.

(upbeat music) - You want to leave a good impression.

- You should always have like a deep thinking mindset.

- It feels like yeah, I was at the library.

- For me, I feel like the biggest thing I see is asking for help.

- Any success that you're going to have in life, you have to learn how to communicate.

- I want to make sure that I run a good team.

- You have to be able to anticipate how people are gonna react.

You have to be able to be considerate towards other people.

- I think everybody needs to have empathy, because everybody is in a different place in their life with different skills.

- There are problems that need to be solved.

And that is something that computers can't do as well, the complex problem solving, and creative problem solving as well.

- I think soft skills are more important today than in the history of this earth.

And I think they will become more valuable as time goes on because hard skills come and go, soft skills are timeless.

(upbeat music)