Unseen skills, unmatched by AI

“Soft” skills that employers used to consider nice-to-haves are now among the most sought-after, even in fields where AI is taking over.

The rise of AI is increasing the value of often overlooked resources: human effort, reasoning, and reflection. The goal for today’s leaders is to implement AI as an enhancer rather than a substitute for soft skills.

Yet employers still struggle to recognize them, often treating emotional intelligence as a given, according to the World Economic Forum.

In fact, only 72% of job postings explicitly mention one or more soft skills. Communication appears consistently, but creative and systems thinking, both of which are key to innovation, rarely do.

The types of tasks tied to empathy, creativity, leadership, and curiosity have only a 13% potential for AI transformation. That’s because they rely on human judgement and perspective. However, they are also among the least likely to appear in job postings despite their increasingly vital role.

Percentage of US job posting mentioning human-centric skills from May 2024 to April 2025:

• Creative thinking 2%
• Empathy and active listening 5%
• Leadership and social influence 21%
• Curiosity and life long learning 2%

 

Good intentions alone are not enough.

Soft skills have the opportunity to grow when employers have clear ways to assess and encourage them. To ensure these abilities show up, managers can do a few things.

See the whole human

• Pay attention to how people think, decide and work with others
• Use peer feedback to reveal what metrics often miss
• Surface emotional intelligence and teamwork through shared projects and activities

Make growth apart of the job

• Build feedback and mentoring into everyday work
• Create safe spaces to try, fail and improve
• Practice judgement, creativity and adaptability on real problems

Put core attributes on record

• Call out human skills explicitly in hiring and performance reviews
• Use portfolios or work samples to show how these abilities are applied
• Work with industry partners to align on shared standards and recognition

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