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?