The rise of soft skills recruitment

Greg Muccio, Head of Talent Acquisition at Southwest Airlines, discusses his company’s long-established soft skills-focused approach to recruitment.

What are soft skills and why should employers pay attention to them when assessing candidates?

Greg: I’ve stopped calling them soft skills and instead call them essential skills because I think they really are. There is absolutely nothing soft about them at all. Looking at high school students here in the United States, they come out as an 18 or 19-year-old, and in terms of success, yes you ask, ‘do they go to college or not, and what are they going to study?’, but, really, we see that soft skills have a lot more to do with their success, not only in college but long-term. They tend to be long-lasting, and they are more transferable, especially between roles in organizations. If a company looks and says: ‘Greg has these essential skills that are key to the success of this role, this department, this organization and that is what he’s going to bring to us’, and they will then just think, ‘can they learn our industry?’. I think we are seeing that a lot. Those essential skills are a lot harder to find. You can learn and can develop them; you cannot simply train somebody to have them.

How did you manage transitioning to soft or ‘essential’ skills-focused recruiting and implementing it across the entire company?

Greg: Southwest was founded on the basis that we hire for attitude and train for skill, and we have never lost that. When I first started at Southwest nearly 20 years ago, we were hiring for a ‘Southwest fit.’ However, we have since been intentional to define what it means from a hiring perspective or even a performance review. In 2020, we clarified our company values to better define the ‘Southwest fit.’ Our values allow us to hire to specific attributes that we can define and represent in an interview. That doesn’t mean that we weren’t hiring to our values before—that has never been true—but instead we have clarified them to hire even better. Previously, if you were hiring and said someone would not fit the role, you needed to be able to say why. The same applies vice versa. If you want to hire someone because they’re a great fit, then why are they great? For a flight attendant, hospitality is number one. We should never hire somebody not suited for that. Whether they like to sing or tell jokes is not a deal-breaker. Their two most important jobs are to keep all the customers safe and then to provide great hospitality. You could fly twice on the same day and switch planes, and you could have one who was hilarious and another who was much quieter. As long as they both performed their two primary functions really well that is what is most important.

How can candidates assess their own suitability for roles where these values are important?

Greg: I think twofold. I think the amount of information that’s out there on companies now at a candidates’ fingertips that was not there even two years ago is vast. Something like Glassdoor for example is great. You can see really organic conversation online. Our online presence is what represents us and so it must ooze Southwest. Traditionally, you search and find out about a company to answer the questions in an interview. The same thing applies for soft skills. You can learn a lot about their culture and values. You can see more and more companies putting those values out there now. To go with that, ask people who know you “what would be one, two, or three words that best describe me?”. What comes out and the reason they’re saying it allows you to form a deeper understanding. Our values are clear, so if you can identify your own values easily, you can tell if you’re aligned with us or if it’s just going to be a waste of time.

The second is that we are clear in what values we are looking for: pride, integrity, humility, teamwork, honesty, service with LUV, and efficiency. So, when we interview you, we are going to ask about those values, so think about times you have demonstrated them. The interview process is me getting to know you and you are the foremost expert on you.

Can things like psychometric tests or references be widely used as an assessment of essential skills?

Greg: I would say that for me and for Southwest I would trust my recruiters first and foremost because unlike any program or test, recruitment means something to them. As a recruiter in an organization there is no worse feeling than knowing somebody that you helped hire is no longer there or is somebody that did not work out. Even though you may have 100 great hires, those of us who are recruiters at heart will always remember the ones that we had to replace. In my opinion, there is no machine that can do that. With testing, I think that it would be more apt to look at testing that measured one or two skills that are unique or specific to a role versus broadly saying ‘this tool will do all’ or ‘can I find a tool that measures Southwest value?’, because it manifests itself in so many different ways that it’s difficult to be definitive. If we do end up using tests, I would be more inclined for it to be role-specific and maybe reduce the number of attributes or essential skills that I’m looking at to one or two that are most critical to that role.

Just as people list their academic qualifications on LinkedIn, could people list their soft skills? Could employers use that as a benchmark to assess candidates’ suitability?

Greg: I would encourage anybody on their resume to lead with those essential skills. Experience is necessary, but essential skills say, “here is what I am bringing to the job every single day”; it is uncompromising. An employer then must determine, based on those things and my experience, am I a good fit for the role? Or if there are gaps, what can I learn? I think that is very valuable. I think the challenge with LinkedIn is when you begin to list those skills, you’ve got to be able to back it up and be able to give examples of each. In addition, as you move up that list of skills, you need to give even more examples; you can’t say a particular value is the top thing you bring to a role and then only give one or two examples of doing it. Take those who work under the wing at our airports. They must work in all weather conditions in a tough job, so we look for things like grit and perseverance. If you come for an interview, you must be prepared to describe in extensive detail your suitability for that role.

How much influence do you think these soft or ‘essential’ skills have on the direction and wider success of a company?

Greg: They can have a huge impact on an organization and its culture. However, it depends on the order that you implement that change. What could end up happening is that a combination of those skills come together, and they may all be great, but they are then influencing direction. To do this, any company first needs to decide on the values that are important for the company to be successful. They need to ask themselves: “What do you want to be? What do you want to represent? How do you want your organization’s stakeholders to perceive you? What do you want inside?” Doing this decides the direction you want to go in. Then you’re able to hire people with the values to match the direction you want to head in. For Southwest, our values are like the cover charge into the company; they are non-negotiable. While you are doing work for us, they are expected to be on display, whether you are dealing with people internally or externally. People may display them very differently, but we are going to hire people that have similar values because we have defined those values.