The Relevance of Social Skills for Junior Staff in Public Administration

The relevance of so-called soft skills is an increasingly central aspect when planning the design of study programmes. More and more often, (obligatory) interdisciplinary seminars in which students learn to strengthen their communicative competence, their ability to work well in teams, or their intercultural competence are integrated into the programmes. Soft skill seminars are meant to enhance students’ employability in a complex labour market independent of their subject of study. In return, specialised knowledge seems to lose relevance, as this knowledge could very well be out-dated in the near future.

International studies show, that employers in the private sector rate the relevance of soft skills high when recruiting junior staff. For long-term career success, soft skills are even seen to be much more relevant than specialised knowledge in the field.

Public administration presents a complex working environment that differs significantly from the private sector in major points. However, just like the private sector, public administration has to meet the challenge to react to profound external developments. To exemplify, it can be assumed that in the light of Europeanisation, internationalisation and current political events, intercultural competence will gain in relevance. Also, developments such as the digitalisation of public administration could mean that media and technical competences that are independent of a specific study programme are gaining in relevance.

So far, it still has to be researched – for both the international and the German case used as an example – if and to what extend soft skills are seen to be relevant in the recruitment of junior staff in public administration. What is more, we do not know which kind of soft skills are judged to be important for the every-day work in public administration. Furthermore, it is unknown how the relevance of soft skills will evolve in the future. In addition, the research project aims to evaluate to what extent soft skills are considered in the standardised recruitment procedures in German public administration and whether their role in recruitment procedures mirrors the perceived relevance of soft skills in every-day work.

The research project is based on a choice experiment.

• Veit, S. and Vedder, S., 2019. Überfachliche Kompetenzen in der Personalauswahl. In: innovative Verwaltung, 41 (3), 21-23.

If you are interested in the dissertation project, you may ask or send comments to: stefanie.vedder[at]uni-kassel[dot]de

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Sylvia Veit

Duration
May 2018 - 2021