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The authors focus on five "soft" skills that are an asset to corporate finance.
Corporate finance professionals today need not only to master the technical skills of their job but also master various soft skills including the ability to communicate, coordinate, work under pressure, and solve problems.
Soft skills have been described as a combination of interpersonal and social skills. Hard skills, on the other hand, include the technical or administrative procedures that can be quantified and measured. Though hard and soft skills differ in many ways, they are complementary. In recent years, many firms have begun to recognize the relationship between employees' soft skills and the overall success of the organization. Hard skills are generally learned through formal training and education; soft skills are typically developed through personal experience and reflection.
Traditionally, corporate finance managers have been criticized for lacking adequate soft skills. However, they aren't the only individuals who receive this criticism. Accountants, information systems specialist, and computer engineers have also been highly criticized. In an attempt to better equip accountants with soft skills, the AICPA Vision 2011 Project recently added soft skills as a core competency that all accountants should posses.
In March 2010, the national unemployment rate in the United States hit 9.7%. Though this number may seem staggering to many professionals, the majority of economist believe that this rate will continue to rise for the next twelve to eighteen months. The finance profession has been fortunate in avoiding substantial increases in unemployment.
The national unemployment rate has implications for future finance professionals as they prepare to enter the workforce after graduation. When the recession finally comes to an end and the job market begins to expand, what skill sets will employers look for? Surprisingly, many employers will not be focused as much on technical skills - such as a mastery of finance and accounting knowledge - as they will be on the so-called soft skills.
Though employers continue to evaluate an applicant's future success based on both hard and soft skills, research suggests that it is often the soft skills that set an applicant apart from the competition. In fact, a recent study performed by the Institute for Labor Studies, in collaboration with some of the world's leading...