Earlier this month an anonymous bidder paid $4.5 million to have lunch with Warren Buffett. If the bidder asks Buffett for career advice, we already know what the billionaire will say—and it won’t cost you a dime.
“Communications skills are the first area I would work on to enhance your value throughout life, no matter what you do,” Buffett once said. Buffett only has one diploma hanging in his office. It’s the one he received for completing a public-speaking course in 1951. “It’s incalculable how much value I got from that hundred dollars,” says Buffett.
Buffet paid $100 for the class. Since Buffett is now worth $85 billion, the return on his investment has outperformed any stock he could have picked over the last 68 years. Buffett says young professionals who improve their public-speaking skills stand out. “If you can communicate well, it’s an enormous advantage,” he says.
Buffett’s right. In one survey of HR professionals across the United States, sixty-three percent said that given two candidates of equal qualifications, the one who has better “oral communication skills” would be the one they’d choose to hire.
As an author of nine business books, I hear from readers nearly every day. Many are recent grads and young professionals who credit communication skills for landing great jobs, leapfrogging the competition, and becoming irreplaceable to their employers.
Great communicators stand out. Craig was a college graduate when I first heard from him several years ago. He had graduated with a general business degree from a good college, but nowhere near elite status. The job market wasn’t as strong as it is today. Craig sent out dozens of resumes to high-tech firms in Silicon Valley but received no response. On paper, he hadn’t distinguished himself in college and the other job applicants had more experience or computer science degrees. “I didn’t look fantastic, but I knew my biggest advantage would be communication skills,” he told me.
A San Francisco-based software firm was the first company to call Craig back for an in-person interview. One hitch remained. Craig knew someone at the company who told him that a top candidate for the same position was good friends with the hiring manager. Craig decided to sharpen the one differentiator he had going for him— public speaking. “I studied their competitors, I studied their product, I created an irresistible product pitch,” Craig said.
Craig rehearsed the pitch for more than eight hours and had friends play the role of interviewer. He walked into the interview on a Thursday and received a substantial offer the following Monday. The company didn’t want to risk losing him because, in the words of the hiring manager, “You can explain our product better than our salespeople.” Craig’s first assignment: recording a video to show the company’s existing sales team how to pitch the company’s complex products clearly and concisely.
Craig stands out because he has the ability to speak the language of technology with the company’s engineers and to translate their ideas into language the customer can understand.
Hybrid skills are in high demand. Craig’s particular skill—honed and sharpened through practice—is what’s known as “hybrid skills.” In an analysis of millions of job postings conducted this year, Burning Glass Technologies discovered that an increasing number of employers are looking for job candidates who have technical skills, along with social, creative and communication skills. According to the report, “People in hybrid jobs are also less likely to become professionally obsolete. Highly hybridized jobs have only 12% risk of being automated, compared with a 42% risk for jobs overall.”
Mark Cuban would agree. In a recent episode of the Recode Decode podcast with Kara Swisher, Cuban said, “Creativity, collaboration, communication skills: Those things are super important and are going to be the difference between make or break.”
As AI, machine learning, and automation replace more of jobs that were previously done by humans, the professionals who excel in ‘soft skills’ will be irresistible and irreplaceable. But you don’t have to wait twenty years to see it happen. In survey after survey of hiring managers, superior communication skills are in high demand and short supply, even for the most technical jobs.
I’ll close with the story of Claire who graduated with a liberal arts degree two years ago. An insurance firm in the Northeast hired her as an entry-level consultant to support financial advisors who use the company’s products. Every year, the firm holds an internal TED-style competition where young professionals are invited to present their ideas to senior executives. They each get 10 minutes. This is where Claire shines. Although Claire was uncomfortable with the idea of public speaking, she became a student of the craft. She read books, analyzed presentations and accepted every opportunity to deliver short presentations to clients.
In Claire’s first competition, she presented to managers twice her age and in front of 100 peers. “People remembered my presentation even months later,” she told me. “This kind of recognition from managers several levels up the totem pole simply would not have happened if I could not deliver an effective presentation. Seven months after we first spoke, Claire sent me an email. “I was just promoted to a business development role, which means I’m tasked with bringing in new prospects. This is going to have a positive impact on my earning potential!” she exclaimed.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, today’s college grads are entering one of the hottest job markets in decades. But along with the good news comes unwelcome news for many—since automation and outsourcing have stripped many remote tasks from entry-level jobs, today’s young professionals are expected “to operate on a more sophisticated level than graduates of the past…employers are looking for fast learners who have exceptional soft skills—the ability to write, listen and communicate effectively.”
No matter what field you enter, you are only as valuable as your ideas. Those who can sell their ideas more persuasively will stand out and get ahead.