
The Best Jobs Now Require You to Be a People Person - kareemm
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-best-jobs-now-require-you-to-be-a-people-person/
======
simula67
This is a suspicious article.

> nearly half of U.S. jobs would be vulnerable to automation within 20 years.
> But “computers aren’t good at simulating human interaction,” Deming said.
> That means a job as a manager or consultant is harder to automate, and the
> skills those jobs require become more valuable.

If humans are being replaced with computers, then there will be need for fewer
managers, supervisors etc. This would cause a decline in demand for people
with "human skills" also.

> Women are getting jobs that require more social skills.

If the share of jobs that require interpersonal skill has in fact increased
over the years just as the author postulates, is it really a wonder that share
of women who hold these types of jobs have also increased ? Why exactly did
the author show only the graph representing how the nature of jobs has changed
for women ? Is the author trying to prove women are naturally better at these
things ?

> Although cognitive skills don’t vary by gender, Deming cites research from
> psychology showing that women consistently score higher on tests of
> emotional intelligence and social perceptiveness.

This is a dangerous line of thinking. If women are naturally better at certain
things, it is not a stretch to imagine that they would be naturally worse at
certain things. This could impede our quest to bring about gender equality.

~~~
mark_integerdsv
>This is a dangerous line of thinking. If women are naturally better at
certain things, it is not a stretch to imagine that they would be naturally
worse at certain things.

Does anyone truly believe that this is not the case? People are different,
sets of people differ along various, sometimes similar parameters.

>This could impede our quest to bring about gender equality.

It really shouldn't though. Differing from one subset of people should not
impact your rights as a human being. 'Gender equality' doesn't mean that
everyone should be 'the same' but rather that everyone should have equal
rights.

Am I not getting this?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _' Gender equality' doesn't mean that everyone should be 'the same' but
> rather that everyone should have equal rights._

The GP was being _very_ sarcastic (there's no way he/she actually meant this).

What you wrote is what gender equality _should_ be about. However, the gender
equality being fought for and pushed in the media is the one of conveniently
pretending there's no biological differences between genders when it suits
you, and then complaining that different results must surely be a result of
conspiracy of one gender against the other.

~~~
rayiner
> What you wrote is what gender equality should be about. However, the gender
> equality being fought for and pushed in the media is the one of conveniently
> pretending there's no biological differences between genders when it suits
> you, and then complaining that different results must surely be a result of
> conspiracy of one gender against the other.

Gender equality being fought in the media is about presuming that disparities
in representation are the result of discrimination unless there is evidence to
rebut that presumption. Nobody in the mainstream media is talking about the
low representation of women in positions that require lots of physical
strength because we have evidence of such differences.

The difference is not being willing to accept "oh it's just different
preferences" as a reason for observed disparities without evidence.

~~~
shasta
> The difference is not being willing to accept "oh it's just different
> preferences" as a reason for observed disparities without evidence.

Not accepting such an explanation is fine, but making unwarranted assumptions
about the cause until they're disproved is not.

The goal isn't statistical equality of outcomes. It's minimized injustice.
When a woman is passed over for a job or offered less money than a less
qualified man, that's an injustice. Those who seek to equalize outcomes by
adding injustice "the other way" are missing the point.

~~~
rayiner
> The goal isn't statistical equality of outcomes. It's minimized injustice

The mainstream presumption is that statistical inequality presumes the
existence of injustice unless proven otherwise. That's a reasonable
presumption.

> Those who seek to equalize outcomes by adding injustice "the other way" are
> missing the point.

That's a short-run versus long-run issue. From 1970 to 2010, the proportion of
women earning medical or law degrees increased from under 10% to almost 50%.
That was, in part, the result of affirmative action measures to increase the
representation of women. But those measures are no longer necessary and no
longer applied. The new ratios are self-perpetuating.

The point that people preoccupied with short-term injustice miss is that
skewed gender ratios in professions are often the result of past
discrimination and so are in and of themselves a continuing injustice. All
else being equal, a rational person would rather enter a profession where they
will not face career headwinds as a minority than one where they will. Some
measure of additional injustice in the short term can set up a more just
equilibrium in the long term.

The opposition to that is an emotional rather than a rational argument. The
rational approach is to look at the net level of injustice integrated over
time.

~~~
shasta
> statistical inequality presumes the existence of injustice unless proven
> otherwise. That's a reasonable presumption.

I disagree. There are too many other factors that are plausibly contributing.
The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

I'm fine with attempting to change the culture to make e.g. STEM more
appealing to women. Achieving this by enforcing an artificial prioritization
of women over men in tech jobs seems to me a last resort approach. Is that
really the only way to achieve the culture shift? In any event, at least I
would find reasoning along these lines honest and am not opposed in principle.

~~~
rayiner
> The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

Who properly bears the burden of proof is a question of your policy objective.
For example, we place the burden of proof on the prosecutor in criminal
proceedings because we have a policy objective of rather having guilty people
go free than innocent people imprisoned. But nothing intrinsically says the
burden of proof has to be with the prosecutor. If our goal was to prioritize
making sure guilty people are held accountable, we could shift the burden of
proof to the defendant.

Placing the burden of proof it on the person making the claim simply
prioritizes the status quo, which may or may not be what you want. Given our
status quo is the product of proven, vicious discrimination against women,
protecting the status quo through allocation of the burden of proof is the
opposite of what we want.

So instead, we have chosen to place the burden of proof on the party citing
intrinsic differences as an explanation/excuse for evidenced disproportionate
representation.

> Achieving this by enforcing an artificial prioritization of women over men
> in tech jobs seems to me a last resort approach

It has the strong advantage of being an approach that has actually worked in
the past.

~~~
YoureWrong
> Placing the burden of proof it on the person making the claim simply
> prioritizes the status quo, which may or may not be what you want. Given our
> status quo is the product of proven, vicious discrimination against women,
> protecting the status quo through allocation of the burden of proof is the
> opposite of what we want.

Except that presuming the opposite allows us to flap around on the whims of
opinion, unsupported by factual evidence, and thus allows us to do things that
are massively harmful to the long-term well being of women (such as raising a
generation of men after the inflection point on gender issues which faced
institutionalized discrimination in places such as universities), and thus
undermine our own end-goals through emotive decisions rather than rational
ones.

The problem with the current approach is that you can't continue it long
enough to cause the necessary change to restabilize the social trends, because
the accumulated backlash of your intentionally inflicted injusticed builds
faster than your positive social change, and you've simply entrenched a good
reason to retaliate (they were intentionally discriminated against by a group
who had previously suffered discrimination and knew what they were doing), and
have already entrenched that intentional infliction of injustice is the means
of correcting past injustices.

Far from changing the underlying social dynamic, the intentional
discrimination against men actually reaffirmed the status quo one meta-level
up from where your concern was: women will be just as sexist towards men as
men were ever to women, given the chance, and even when they are personally
"concerned" with the topic of discrimination.

Because it failed to use science in developing its methods, recent feminism
has been a massive failure: far from standing against discrimination, modern
feminism has demonstrated that women believe gender relations is a game of
tit-for-tat, and they should be positively discriminated against by men
looking for retaliation over their intentional discrimination anywhere that
feminism has acted in excess.

This is a destabilizing force in gender relations, and should be set aside as
an immature view. Instead, we should look honestly at the situation and
develop a stance from actual ethics, rather than emotions.

~~~
rayiner
> Except that presuming the opposite allows us to flap around on the whims of
> opinion, unsupported by factual evidence

Flapping around on the whims of opinion, unsupported by factual evidence,
seems like a pretty good description of the situation to me whenever someone
invokes "but, but, preferences" to explain why women are vastly more
represented amongst high SAT math scorers than among programmers and
engineers.

~~~
shasta
> Letting the legacy of past discrimination stand in perpetuity because fixing
> it would require temporary discrimination in the opposite direction?

I'm skeptical of the explanation that pay inequality between genders is caused
by irrational business-hurting discrimination when the vast majority of people
I meet in tech don't seem to have any aversion to hiring women. Suppose 10% of
companies won't hire you because of irrational reasons. What does that do to
your market value? Under the simplest economic model, it does nothing. Because
there is still competition between the 90%. For irrational discrimination to
cause pay inequality, it has to be widespread. (Edit: Disclaimer -- the above
argument may be flawed. Feel free to correct my reasoning.)

~~~
rayiner
> Suppose 10% of companies won't hire you because of irrational reasons. What
> does that do to your market value? Under the simplest economic model, it
> does nothing.

Under simple economic models, given fixed supply, small changes in demand can
have large impacts on prices.

~~~
shasta
Depends. There obviously has to be a large change in the demand curve at the
supply point if that point is fixed. But I agree that a small horizontal shift
in a demand curve can have a big impact.

I don't think that's the right way of looking at it, though, because it treats
the men and women supply-demand problems as independent. As long as the
prefer-men employers are outnumbered by men, they won't affect equilibrium in
this simplistic model.

------
NumberCruncher
>> The Best Jobs __NOW __Require You to Be a People Person

"Even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15% of one's financial
success is due one's technical knowledge and about 85% is due to skill in
human engineering, to personality and the ability to lead people" \- Dale
Carnegie 1936

~~~
Bouncingsoul1
Yeah I also think I heard this song before.

------
onion2k
Of the people in the world who are the most wealthy, I don't think many of
them come across publicly as 'people person' types. There are myriad stories
surrounding Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, etc
and how they're _dreadful_ to work with. Jobs especially - people can't write
entire listicles about how awful you are if you're a people person, but
Business Insider managed it - [http://uk.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-
jerk-2011-10?op=1](http://uk.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10?op=1)

Maybe if you want a high paying job working for someone else then you should
brush up on your 'soft skills'; but if money is _really_ the driving force
behind that decision then you'd be better off developing a fiercely ruthless
attitude and starting a business of your own.

~~~
dkarapetyan
Why can't you do it without being fierce or ruthless? I think this attitude is
somewhat dangerous to propagate.

~~~
onion2k
Because ... cargo cults[1]. :)

Maybe you can. Richard Branson seems to be an example of someone who has, but
in that respect he's unusual among his billionaire peers.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult#Metaphorical_uses_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult#Metaphorical_uses_of_the_term)

~~~
chaostheory
If I remember correctly, you can probably add the founders of SAS and South
West to Richard Branson's side of the list as well

~~~
arethuza
I thought for a moment you the SAS and not SAS the company - "fierce _and_
ruthless" being pretty much the the point of the former.

Mind you, I can think of at least one military leader who was not only
exceptionally good at doing his "day job" (bomber pilot) but who was also a
remarkable leader and a thoroughly decent chap:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cheshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cheshire)

------
quaffapint
I went on a tour with my son's robotics club to a company that makes robotic
arms and such for factories.

At the end the CEO said if their is one thing he can recommend to all kids (I
was ready for him to say take STEM classes), is for them to take public
speaking. He said it's so critical for them to be able to properly share your
ideas and listen to people. Quite interesting.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
While I don't necessarily disagree with this, its clear this is from a CEO's
perspective where public speaking is a very important role. If you have 1000
hours of personal and technical development a year at your disposal and you
spend 500 of those at toastmasters instead of learning libraries, tooling, and
messing around with robotics projects, then who do you think will win out
during an interview? You or the guy who had his nose in robotics textbooks and
websites for that 1000 hours?

I'd rather hire the guy who is a little mumble-mouthed and who knows his shit
over the chatty guy who can't compete technically with the first candidate.
The original guy can work on his social/speaking/managerial skills as his
career develops. In the meantime, he needs to compete as a skill worker.

~~~
Apocryphon
If that guy doesn't know how to convey that knowledge at all, and gets all
nervous and trips up, he's at a far worse disadvantage. Which, I suppose, fits
the narrative about how technical interviews are part of a broken hiring
process.

------
6stringmerc
Replace "people person" with "strong communicator" and I can buy into such a
premise very easily.

For many years I've expressed a belief that the only skill set that will
remain viable throughout technological change is the ability to communicate.
In simplified form, there are many friction points in social or commercial
interactions which can be worsened by mis-communication or conflicting social
norms. For example, certain cultures have very low opinions of women, and when
expressed as though it's a norm in a different environment, that doesn't
promote a successful outcome.

For a shorthand example, just check out advertising. Yes, there's a
significant amount of data-driven research, and I know Google is at the top of
this pile of...commerce...with its AdWords, so I take that to infer
advertising is one of the most hit-or-miss areas where disruption was
beneficial.

But here's the thing: Algorithms can't write jingles or colloquial slogans
that will resonate with a particular audience. They can analyze them, but not
create them, and I'm comfortable holding this belief until I see something
which really revolutionizes technology in this field. I try to keep up with
progress in conversational AI and the Turing Test challenge when I can,
because I see that as the first major field where progress can be quantified
and proven a success.

Oh, and this is legitimately tongue-in-cheek, but if you want to see a great
example of what I mean, just look at the role of a Chief Executive Officer.
They don't actually _work_ as we might define it by input of labor, crunching
numbers, or assembling information - they take loads of input, run it through
their internal processor, then tell people what to do. They network,
socialize, and communicate and for some reason, in the US, get paid vast sums
of money for performing this role. I find it kind of funny and sad how high
they're held in esteem, when realistically, they put in fewer hours, less
effort, and reap rewards far greater than the run-of-the-mill high school
teacher.

------
walshemj
Social skils beats Tech :-) a piece written by a non techie and seems to be
written to support the old professions medicine and law.

Worried that those greasy engineers might be getting to close them in terms of
salary and status?

------
meric
The hardest things for machines to get right is to act human - i.e. social
skills. As tasks that are easy to automate will continue to be rewarded less,
and tasks that are hard to automate will increase in cost (e.g. education,
health care), it pays, literally, to develop good social skills and become a
people person, no matter what field you're in.

It is by achieving the essence of what it means to be human, a person is
valued within human society.

------
benashford
Automation is a given, more-and-more things are going to be automated. People
jobs are going to be the last to be automated too, perhaps these jobs never
will be automated, although a lot of low-level traditionally people-facing
jobs will, e.g. shop assistants, it's already started.

But notwithstanding the above, there are logical holes in the rest of the
article. I won't even mention that slight on high-tech work by equating it to
"plugging away at a spreadsheet".

The biggest flaw was the assumption that the automation to make the
aforementioned spreadsheet obsolete would be done without those people. In
reality, any person highly-paid to "plug away" at a spreadsheet would be paid
due to their domain/industry knowledge and skills rather than purely Excel
skills and would still be employed operating a new system, or even directly
involved in building and maintaining such systems.

This pattern is repeated throughout the article. Technology will obsolete low-
tech grunt work first, mainly because contrary to the central premise of that
article, technology is a people business. It's not a people business in the
same was sales or marketing is, it's not about who's got the biggest set of
contacts[0], but you'll never build a successful product without understanding
the world it fits in to; building good technology requires a good deal of
listening and empathy, both toward the customer, but also to the system as a
whole and your fellow engineers.

In the short-to-medium term, any acceleration in automation will also increase
demand for engineers in that field. And any such systems will only be as good
as those who made them, even knowledge-workers not in the automation business
will still be required to operate/design/improve such systems. Maybe in
smaller numbers...

What happens after that, no one knows. The effects on the economy would be
difficult to predict. And one day in ten, fifty, a hundred, several thousand
years from now, fully autonomous AI will be here... and all bets are off.
Long-term predictions would be foolish.

[0] - except for the sale and marketing of a technology business, of course,
it's not a binary situation.

------
Simp
>A 2013 paper by two Oxford researchers projected that nearly half of U.S.
jobs would be vulnerable to automation within 20 years.

Who says "social skills" can't be automated?

> But “computers aren’t good at simulating human interaction,”

Not yet you mean.

~~~
LoSboccacc
most importantly, who's gonna build the automation?

there are engineering needs for a hundred years or more* to transform current
work centered society in an automation centered society, and even then those
things won't just maintain themselves forever.

*not because technical challenges, but because the resistance from who detains the status quo

~~~
tyilo
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

------
ComteDeLaFere
Didn't we just have a story on HN claiming that introverts make the best
something-or-other? I'm not even trying to keep up with things like this
anymore.

~~~
codyb
Entrepreneurs. It's been covered a few times, and not only just recently.

[http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/can-introvert-be-great-
entre...](http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/can-introvert-be-great-
entrepreneurs.html)

~~~
ComteDeLaFere
This is starting to remind me of health and fitness "advice". Every day
there's a new article "debunking" yesterday's claims, in favor of something
that will be "debunked" in another week.

Here's some advice - work hard, do your best, say "yes" to as many
opportunities as possible, and be kind. You'll make out in the end.

~~~
logfromblammo
Personal anecdote indicates that "work hard" and "do your best" have slight
negative correlation to a positive observed outcome in some workplaces.

Minor titration efforts suggest that "appear to work at slightly above the
observed median level of effort" and "if doing your best and following orders
conflict, follow the orders" work better in practice. This strategy has
yielded more positive performance reviews than opening up full throttle. It
depends a lot on workplace culture.

Save your best efforts for personal projects, or for a company of which you
own at least a whole 1%.

Companies in this decade generally do not reward competence or diligence, or
respect vocational passion. If _your specific_ company does, then by all
means, give them your best. Otherwise, don't cast your pearls before swine.

Definitely be kind and pursue many opportunities.

~~~
ComteDeLaFere
Well said, but my opinion is that you should move away from thinking that
success is a "positive performance review".

I've found that "work hard" and "do your best" work well in combination with
the other two thoughts, not so much on their own. It's a package.

~~~
logfromblammo
I have been rather too busy avoiding failure lately to even know what success
is--at least in terms of my career. Positive performance reviews help me to
continue putting food on the table while I try to find something better for my
life. And leaving at the end of the day with a good portion of my creative
energy left unspent gives me more options when I get home.

You need to be able to work hard do your best in some aspect of your life to
be happy. But it might have to be something other than your job.

------
crdb
On the contrary, the software production value chain is fragmenting. On one
end you have the hardcore mathematicians building things in Idris in the
evenings (it's the future, right?), on the other the slick business folks with
an arts background and enough experience to know where to steer the
company/project/department. Neither wants to expend mental energy in the
other's area of competence.

As software gets increasingly more complicated and moves up levels of
abstraction, there is an ecosystem being created in the middle to bridge the
two. A business-minded, but aware-of-computer-science middleman who translates
from one end to the other, produces a clean functional spec from a messy, day
long conversation with the user, or tells the CEO "sorry, that's not actually
technically possible". One does not need to know category theory to be useful
there.

~~~
hekker
Exactly the reason why I did a Bachelor in International Business
Administration and a Master in Computer Science (Embedded Systems)! I feel
that the gap in between is a good niche to be in. I have to say that there are
some education programmes where the focus is on IT management that try to fill
this niche too although I have some doubts about how effective it is to study
IT management in itself.

------
dkarapetyan
As opposed to an animal person? So someone spent a few thousand words saying
that emotional and inter-personal intelligence is a valuable skill to develop.
Got it, thanks.

~~~
enraged_camel
You don't sound like a people person...

------
smegel
Wow that changed quickly. Yesterday it was all about data science and machine
learning!

------
TheGRS
I find that some of my co-workers who work the best are ones that are not
necessarily good at talking to others, but are good at shutting themselves out
from others for periods of time, which helps them get lots of work done. The
risky part being that sometimes they get a lot of work done in a totally wrong
direction.

~~~
seivan
Yeah, I know a guy who quit and is planning on working at a grocery store.
He's an amazing c++ dev (who did iOS) but got sick of everything else related.

------
dlwj
One of the theories I have is that the best jobs in the U.S. require you to be
culturally american. The U.S is great in that it is far more meritocratic than
other countries but at the highest levels you still need to be culturally
american.

This helps with things like understanding other people's motivations as well
as day to day rapport which builds up into deep camaraderie.

People who are culturally un-american expend far more energy building rapport
in this american way. (e.g. dealing with the "How's it going." exchange.)

The advantage is the the cultural natives don't need to wear "masks" while
cultural non-natives are required to keep their masks on at the correct times,
draining energy that could have been used for thinking/maneuvering.

Chinese and American culture for example have different default states for
friendship amongst co-workers. Americans treat all people in a friendly manner
but distinguish between co-workers and true friends. Friendship is not the
default and is sought out based on mutual compatibility.

In Chinese culture though, friendship based on environment (school, work) IS
the default. Through their eyes, American's are two faced while from the other
side, they are just trying to avoid awkward forced friendship.

Another theory is that this difference in culture creates an exponential
acquisition of skills in communication and selling yourself as well as
avoiding awkward situations. Since these social skills are a constant part of
life growing up, it is a natural strength in adult life.

Chinese culture tends to structure growth of their children in a "follow the
rules, memorize all the textbooks" way so Chinese children only start their
social skill education in adult life.

So to sum up...American culture creates people with stronger social skills
because there isn't a "God" to tell you which road leads to heaven that you
can diligently follow heads down. Immersion into American culture helps
increase social skills the longer you are in it. Obvious acceptance of it
(rather than avoidance) may make you seem more "coachable".

------
_pmf_
"Now" == since we developed structured social interaction

------
juddlyon
How is this a new thing? Being technical + good social skills > being
technical on its own isn't really news.

------
rodgerd
I guess it would depend on how you define "best" \- but I'd argue that's
always been the case.

~~~
draven
In the article, best = most lucrative.

~~~
rodgerd
The King's physician may or may not be the best physician in the land - but he
is definitely the best remunerated!

------
analog31
The graph at the bottom of the page pretty much tells me that we're talking
about a non-effect.

------
pen2l
How does the dupe detector work anyway. First I thought one could resubmit
after a certain amount of time... but no, I submitted this only a day or two
ago. Maybe links can be modified (add a ?resubmit at the end, for instance),
but nope, I submitted with exact same URI. I wonder. (Not complaining, just
curious if anyone has insight into this).

------
pasbesoin
A few decades ago, I felt frustrated in college because the library had been
remodeled to emphasized "shared workspaces." Some of us would wander around
campus looking for open classrooms for the evening, to get a little peace and
quiet. We weren't "non-people" people, by the way. We just studied and
performed a hell of a lot better without constant distraction -- even
distraction "in the background".

Funny that often, those same people formed a good part of the top rank in my
classes.

I get out of school, to find workplaces pushing the same damned thing.

Well, flash forward some decades, and the popular press is finally catching on
that such "shared workspaces" are often a nightmare -- particularly for high
performers.

So now, the same yutzes are telling us that "people" people are the key to
success. "Be more people!" (TM)

I actually get along better with most people than, well, most people. Red
necks to stereotypical gays, and everything in between. In each place I've
worked, I've ended up getting to know and collaborating with people throughout
the organization. BIG organizations.

Why? In good part, because I identify and other people apparently identify in
me people who "get things done." And not in the broke-ass way of the serial
multi/many/manifold tasker. Rather, expeditiously but carefully: What's the
most right we can do without unduly straining the resources at hand.

So: "People" people. I've worked with them. A subset are truly good. The
majority are, to some degree... "working their lines" and "working the
system."

Their value, to the extent it exists, lies in getting other people to do
things. In the corporate world, too often this starts coming too close to
being "manipulators."

Keep your "people" people. Park them in some cubes, hopefully out of my way.

I was going to add another sentence, but I guess that's about the best I can
hope for.

------
victorhn
I know Smalltalk, i think i am on the safe side.

------
abandonliberty
Great move by the author preventing his article from becoming garbage
clickbait:

>he doesn’t know how much influence it might have, exactly. “I deliberately
chose not to” estimate this effect, he said. “I didn’t want to give the
illusion of certainty.”

You can almost hear the journalist crying, wishing for that hard number they
could put in the headline. Author displays great social skills in an article
about social skills.

------
pjmlp
It has always been the case.

In countries like my own, where the majority of IT market is consulting with
very little product development, you need soft skills.

------
signaler
"People Person" is something I still see on resumes and frequently accompanied
by the ever popular: "Enjoys Swimming, Reading, and playing guitar". Do I yet
care? I really want to see if you are bursting with enthusiasm when applying
for a job. Any less than full enthusiasm for a place and you are fired before
you even get the job.

------
analog31
"people person" jobs are vulnerable to technology too. Who still wants to deal
with a salesman?

------
amelius
This is because the best skill to have is still to lure your potential clients
to your product. Whether it is by special psychological sales techniques, by
writing the coolest CSS, or by making the most appealing visual design. We can
see it here on HN every day.

------
mdemare
Being good at social skills also means being effective at manipulating other
people. That doesn't sound so warm and fuzzy, but it sure is a valuable skill
in management. I'm not sure if women have an edge over men there.

------
JustSomeNobody
So, in 20 years we'll all be in management? No thanks.

~~~
ddingus
No. There will be a bunch of us in sales, or sales support if the actual
selling is "icky." And that's pre-sales, or "applications / systems /
solutions engineering" which equals, "engineer a perception of value in the
customers mind so the sales person can close a deal. I have and continue to
make a pretty good living doing that kind of work. Demand is high too.
Growing.

And a pile more in consulting, because we can't seem to automate the
perception bias inherent in an opinion we pay for as opposed to one produced
"in house."

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candybar
This is a bizarre article. The author seems to think that being a doctor, a
lawyer, a management consultant or a dentist requires some kind of advanced
interpersonal skills but this is not true at all.

The primary thing that qualifies to you become one of those is detailed
technical knowledge and analytical skills, not too different from being a
software engineer or a plumber. Virtually no one tries to become a doctor and
drops out either at pre-med or in medical school because they realize they
can't hack the social part of the job. There's a big difference between a job
requiring social interactions and a job where you're primarily judged by
social and interpersonal skills. If you place most jobs on the technical
knowledge to the social skill spectrum, those jobs would be near the far
technical end.

The author also seems to think that there was ever a point in time where
social skills weren't extremely important. Management always paid very well
and it's by definition a job that requires social skills. Jobs requiring
primarily social skills and not much else are on a decline and also the types
of social skills required in the marketplace have changed dramatically. The
internet as a medium massively increases connectivity and discoverability,
obsoleting a lot of shallower social skills, like comfort with making
introductions and being a low-level connector because it's easier to find the
people you need and verify their trustworthiness without having to rely on a
connector. On the other hand, it's probably easier to build a truly massive
network and those skills are probably valuable, even if they aren't similar to
traditional social skills.

One major trend I see is that being book smart is more important than ever
because more interaction is taking place over online and face-to-face
interactions are becoming less necessary. This means understanding the medium
and technology is more important than natural face-to-face social skills we
learn when we're younger and also the ability to communicate concisely and
precisely and the ability to predict its impact ahead of time are more
important. Also the world is more complicated and simple technical knowledge
is very easy to look up and learn - this makes advanced analytical and
learning skills more important than simple, rote, static knowledge. Being a
well-adjusted, normal, sociable and outgoing person, which I think most people
would associate with "social skills" speaking colloquially, is less important
than it has been for a while. The kind of social skills that get you paid well
are more like the social skills that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have in
abundance.

The other trend is that women are increasingly outperforming men at school,
resulting in more book smart women. That bodes well for women, much more than
the author's bizarre insistence that social skills are suddenly more important
and that somehow women have better social skills than men, both of which are
really questionable assertions.

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jonesb6
I guess Michael Scott was right after all..

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samwiseg
I've definitely seen this after spending two summers at Airbnb. They take
pride in being very selective re: culture fit and personality, and I think
this is one of the most critical reasons why it's a great place to work.

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qjighap
This guy needs to get some better advertising sources. Take a look at "10 Jobs
That Pay 6 Figures Without a Degree".

