In the recent months I have paid attention to the soft skills of a set of people I often interact with (at work, the library group, and the place where I volunteer)
These are my observations of the value (paycheck) I estimate different people get based on soft skills: maturity is a top soft skill
- What maturity gets you?
- knowledge of when/how to act on new information
- better understanding of priorities
- be more thoughtful of all aspects of completing a task (such as, does it fully work? did I consider all possible scenarios?)
- What other soft skills you already screen for?
- In most teams, even in a library group, you likely already screened for a minimum acceptable of soft skills
- The screening likely included communication skills, certain achievements, and a team fit
- Likely you gotta pay extra for the mature-level person
- What soft skills can your team develop over time?
- Focus
- Knowledge of other’s strengths and weak points
- Plan for action
- Observe soft skills of other people in the different teams you belong to
Software engineer, computer scientist at heart 