Interpersonal Skills: Can You Change Who You Are?
You have always been able to easily make friends or get a date, but did you know that your great interpersonal skills can get you in the door of a company much quicker?
A survey developed by Accountemps, a specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals, and conducted by an independent research firm confirmed that while industry-specific experience is important, personality or people skills reigned supreme as qualifications that were found to be most valuable. More than 270 CFOs from across Canada were surveyed.
When presented with accounting or finance candidates who possess similar qualifications, 34% of chief financial officers (CFOs) interviewed said applicants' people skills would tip the balance over such attributes as industry experience and software proficiency.
So this means that you should use the employment interview as an opportunity to showcase your people skills.
As one CFO put it, "Practising responses to interview questions will help candidates relax and make a good impression on the employer. Describing past experiences requiring strong teamwork, leadership and communication skills will give them a leg up on the competition as well."
Here is how the numbers stack up:
2004 2009
Personality or people skills 1% 34%
Industry-specific experience 55 28
Software/technology knowledge 24 19
Certification/advanced degree 13 8
Multilingual skills 2 5
International experience 4 2
Comments