Soft skills, hard skills: What matters most? Evidence from job postings

Using a proprietary database of online job postings from 2010 to 2019, we find that job vacancies in the U.S. energy sector increasingly require high levels of soft skills (such as social, cognitive, people management, project management, and customer service skill), showing an upskilling pattern in the past decade. We further examine skill requirements across and within four major professional occupations in the U.S. energy sector and find substantial variations. Meanwhile, in the energy sector, although cognitive and social skills are the most frequently required skills, they do not positively contribute to firm productivity. Although the requirement for hard skills (such as products and marketing, engineering, and general computer skill) stays relatively flat, hard skills actually matter most in the energy sector, especially products and marketing and general computer skills are two most valuable skills, contributing the highest to energy firms. Our results indicate that energy firms should pay more attention to hard skills in human resource management, while not following the increasing trend of soft skills in hiring.

Automated summary

Analysis shows that job vacancies in the U.S. energy sector increasingly require high levels of soft skills, but hard skills actually contribute more to firm productivity. Therefore, energy firms should focus more on developing hard skills in human resource management.