#soft-skills

#soft-skills

The cybersecurity landscape is a dynamic arena in which innovation and threats evolve relentlessly. ISACA's State of Cybersecurity 2025 report - drawing insights from more than 3,800 professionals worldwide - offers a critical snapshot of this environment. It highlights persistent staffing shortages, the transformative impact of AI, rising stress levels and constrained budgets. Together, these findings underscore the delicate balance organizations must strike between technology, talent and well-being.

"It's clear that students and parents expect maximum return on investment from a college education," a High Point University spokesperson told Fortune.

technical skills don't cut it.

One professional who followed a decidedly squiggly career pathway before doing a six-month bootcamp in 2020 is Lucy Ironmonger, a tech lead at fintech Zuto, who studied English with creative writing at the University of Birmingham 13 years earlier. While there, she found a bar job and, due to her love of music, seized the opportunity to run the establishment's music night every Tuesday.

The narrow definition of success for adolescents has persisted and pressured teenagers for decades. Good test results, high grades, and admission to reputable colleges have been considered the ultimate signs of success in youth. Since children enroll in school, their achievements are quantified in terms of figures on report cards and scores on standardized tests. Although these measures provide a perspective of academic aptitude, they do not always reflect the multivariate and multidimensional nature of success.

If hard skills are increasingly being automated, employers are shifting focus to what AI can't replicate: creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and other essential soft skills. For years, technical abilities were king, but the tide may be turning. Indeed's Hiring Lab took a look at job postings and analyzed which soft skills were listed. The top were communication, leadership, and organizational prowess. Forty-three percent of all job listings had at least one soft skill advertised.

What if computer science degrees weren't actually as valuable as everyone's been claiming?

The ability to test and learn is great for growth.

Japanese companies are sending fresh recruits to military-run programmes to instil teamwork, discipline and basic social skills that were lost during remote work.

Personal branding transcends your current role or business, shaping how people describe you when you're not in the room and opening unexpected doors.

Soft skills are essential in the modern workplace, as employers increasingly prioritize emotional intelligence, adaptability, communication, and collaboration alongside technical expertise.

Walk into any HR roundtable, and you'll hear the same refrain: "We don't have a technical skills gap. We have a soft skills gap."

These traits are not always the most visible on paper, but they show up in the choices students make and the stories they tell.

"By designing soft skills simulations in Adobe Captivate, you empower adult learners to practice, fail safely, reflect, and ultimately master the workplace skills they need to succeed."