Why does every job require PEOPLE SKILLS?

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Hello DavidM,

You certainly have a point: People sometimes abuse "social skills" as a cover for "People I like personally and vice versa," and turn the office into their personal club. Some people do indeed waste a great deal of time at the office chattering about non-work-related things.

Just as pretty much any workplace needs a significant amount of actual work, pretty much any workplace also needs a significant amount of social interaction (though what kind and how intense the interaction may be varies from workplace to workplace). Quite possibly an Aspie workplace would require much less...as the saying goes, nice work if you can get it. If you work outside your home (and quite possibly even there), in all likelihood you work in a mainly NT workplace. (If a significant number of the people you work with are non-technical, make that "mostly NT".)

Rightly or wrongly, humans just don't work well together - especially in large organizations - without the copious use of skills such as tact, subtlety, strategic tones of voice, quick matching of names with faces, detection of various individuals' short-term moods and long-term wants and needs, etc., in which NTs have at least an initial advantage.

In the world as it is - not as you or I would like it to be or feel it should be or spent our first few decades thinking it actually was - social skills are objectively important. We have a choice: learn those social skills and adapt to certain realities, or remain un- or under-employed, poor, lonely and powerless. Unfortunately, ditching social skills and building and keeping a successful life based on technical skills alone is not on the menu.

What do you think?

I can sort of see slinging around a nebulous word like people skills, especially if, well you're going to be dealing w/the public on a regular basis, though I can also see the merit to some of the criticism here. But I saw an ad the other day that warned they would only hire people "passionate" about this particular business. And the best part? It was an ad for restaurant waitstaff. At a pretty crappy place, barely above fast-food level.

Umm, what the hell? I can see wanting to hire conscientious and even friendly people to wait tables, but doesn't it seem a bit much to expect anyone to bring "passion" to a job that is mostly about doling out cheeseburgers and french fries?

I can't help but thinking that this ad was the product of someone who's mind has become utterly unhinged from reality by one too many Tony Robbins seminar.

Amen to that, WorldsEdge! People skills, good attitudes and hard work - at all levels - always have been and always will be important. Passion - especially for low-level wage workers - seems to me much more like a fad.

I'm not sure why so many managers seem to expect their workers to necessarily enjoy their jobs. Maybe they're just trying to limit themselves to people who will work for peanuts. That works out much better in some fields (like politics, music or sports) than others (low-level retail, etc).

Cheers,

I do something along those lines, I start at 12am every night. There's no phones to be answered at midnight. The only people who call are truck drivers coming to us who need directions, and usually I don't even get to answer it.

I know this thread is 2 years old but I've finally found the thread I was looking for and this topic is my top anxiety at the moment.
Are we great socialisers? Probably not. Are we great at multitasking? Probably not. It’s something we could always work on, but it will never be a strength of mine, especially when it involves too much interaction with customers aswell as doing lots of other things at once.
The retail setting seems to value people who can interact properly and understand what to do without much help, and can multitask quickly, and it just makes me feel so sad because I see a hidden stereotype in all this, which is against people with disabilities, including Aspies. Employers care about one thing and one thing only, which is making money, and they aren’t going to pay people who are like me (finds dealing with customers very overwhelming, stammers when trying to explain things, socially unconfident, and very slow when someone asks me to pass them something – I’m always hunting everywhere when it’s right in front of me).
What makes me laugh is they seem to take on people with disabilities what are more visible, for example, people with Down’s Syndrome. But people who have Dyspraxia and mild AS, like me, seem to have less chance of being employed, because I come across to them as normal and it just makes it so complicated to explain the stereotypical reasons. I just think it’s unfair that employers don’t give people who are socially challenged a chance to actually be in employment.
I’m not saying every Aspie is unemployed, and I’m happy for those of you who have found employment and are doing well in your job, but I’m on job-seekers, and I’ve been looking for work and sending out CV after CV, and attending interview after interview, and trying out work experience after work experience, but I still don’t seem to be getting anywhere – probably because I give off these vibes telling employers that I’m an unconfident idiot. (I’m not an idiot, and neither are you, but I said that from an employer’s point of view. It’s a big stereotype.) And I think that if employers actually stopped and realised how intelligent Aspies are (instead of judging by their social confidence all the time), I think that it will be less harder for me (and those of you who are also unemployed) to find work. Not all of us have confidence. I don’t anyway. Emotionally, I’m finding it mighty difficult to keep up this job search because of my lack of confidence. I suffer from an anxiety disorder, and I don’t want a job where I got to get 2 buses, because it’s just going to be too much stress for me. It’s like the law thinks that everybody’s got this confidence to be able to go out and get a job without any hassle – but it really doesn’t work like that. We are all individuals at the end of the day, and it’s great that some do have a lot of confidence, but unfortunately, not all of us do, and it’s NOT because we are being lazy, because it’s a stereotype to call an anxious person lazy, who is trying their hardest to reach their goal.
Think of a job like McDonalds, for example. A job like that creates a tremendous amount of multitasking – and it’s not the multitasking what stresses me out, it’s the interaction with customers what really gives me silent panic. I’m good with social connectivity with colleagues, once I get to know them well enough, but I’m just not good at dealing with customers, and this is real hard for me, because most jobs require either customer skills, or good GCSE grades – and I haven’t got neither of them. I may be intelligent enough to be able to work, but all my grades are below C, (most are Gs), and my confidence with customers is bad. It’s like I let customers get away with murder. I’ve done it in my past work experiences I’ve had in retail. I have this unconfident expression on my face what customers can see – even when I’m smiling – and they know that they can talk to me like s**t, and they do. And I let them. And I did go to a customer service skills course a few weeks ago, and they were going to do role plays to practice what to do in an awkward situation with difficult customers, but nobody in the group wanted to do the role plays, so we didn’t do it. I wanted to do the role plays because I think role playing will help me learn and gain confidence, more than anything.

I am surpised I do not see this kind of thread more often.

Almost everything seems to ask for some sort of people skills, either in the job description or by judging you in the interview.

How in the world is anyone even close to the autism spectrum supposed to find work with such rigid requirements? I can try researching lines of my answers and such, but I could do that for hours and if I show the slightest bit of awkwardness, the interviewers are going to be judgemental about it. I wonder if I get to be ridiculously overqualified that the moment of awkwardness could be overlooked even in a harsh job market.

It's ridiculous though that it doesn't seem to matter if an aspie can do a job 100x better than someone who just happened to make perfect eye contact.

The thing is, I have great people skills, except for making eye contact. And that seems to be where the problem lies. Most employers won't hire you if you don't make proper eye contact.

It's so frustrating! But I suppose that's how it goes; if you're in the least bit socially awkward, you're not going to make it in this world.

You confuse being a social butterfly with people skills.
No, not every employer expects that every hire will have deep analytical knowledge in the field, a wealth of references, and astute business development skills. If you had all this, you wouldn't bother work for someone, you'd work for yourself and likely be successful.

What they DO expect, however, is someone who can discuss the intricate details of the job to others in the company, because you don't serve much value if you're just hammering away on your own and not giving anyone an idea of what you're doing, how it can benefit the business, etc. If you can't effectively communicate your ideas, what good are you to anyone (even your peers within the company)?

Thought I'd throw this in here...

There ARE not-so-people-skills jobs out there. Many years ago, my mother suggested, seems I like walking so much plus at the time I was a newspaper girl, that I consider being a Postee (as in Mail carrier for Canada Post). I'm 21 now, just finishing a year of college taking a variety of courses, and finding that the degree (Associates) I was after may not necessarily lead to a "related" job... maybe her suggestion wasn't such a bad Idea after all!

If you are in good physical shape, enjoy long walks, have a driver's licence (or willing to get one) PLUS a clean record, and are willing to deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at you, then perhaps delivering mail wouldn't be so bad... the pay is half decent too

In conclusion, not all decent jobs require "people skillls!"
Put someone like myself in a fast food job... I'd just end up snarling at all the hard-to-please customers... or make them wear their "not-good-enough" coffee or hamburger! lmfao!

Every job involves people skills of some kind, to some extent. I'm a janitor/stock worker at a furniture store, and I still have to interact with people regularly, even if not for all that long. Customers asking me where the restroom is, making small-talk with the ones who come to pick up furniture they bought, etc.

I understand what you mean. I have noticed this too. EVERY job seems to require "dealing with angry people" to a certain extent. I am OK with a bit of interaction, but I wouldn't want to be a mediator or therapist or anything. It doesn't help that I am useless with math. I mean, I can do the basics, but I can't do x + y=9+8-4-6+2 or anything like that. I also wouldn't like a job in construction. I asked Wrongplanet members about this a little while back and I got "translator". I don't have a foreign language.

Is there any existing jobs what doesn't involve certain intelligence or customer service skills? This world holds such a big stereotype over people with poor social skills, such as myself. I'm fine with colleagues, but with customers I seem socially afraid of them. Also the world values people with high IQ, for the top jobs, but unfortunately I can't do that either because I'm not bright enough to be chosen to do something in the higher class like scientist or something like that.

My IQ is slightly below average, and my social skills may be more better than my intelligence, but I'm no good with customers. I am unconfident and shy, and people can see this just by looking at me, no matter how hard I try to be confident with myself. The more I try to be confident with people, the more my voice comes monotone-like and squeaky. I don't normally speak in a monotone, but I read somewhere that sometimes a monotone can mean unconfidentness, unless speaking in monotone is part of your general personality (that's a bit different). But for me, I only speak in monotone when I feel overwhelmed and shy.

I think a cleaner or a kitchen assistant will be best for me. I am fine interacting with colleagues. No problem there at all, once I get to know them. In fact, I could easily pass myself off as NT when I'm talking to colleagues. I think I would be fine doing a job where you're just washing up and tidying up in the kitchen. It's more on my ''level'', anyway. No interaction with customers, and doesn't require excellent grades or specific knowledge. Well, you've got to have some knowledge of how to do those tasks, but I think you've got to be really really stupid to not know how to wash up, if you know what I mean.

this is why I teach EFL,

-I'm hyper-verbal, never shut up, and multi-lingual. Oh and linguistics/ foreign language is almost an obsession with me. The fact that I'm strange is 'normal' in East Asia where I'm the big white guy in the room. So it's like my dream job. And I never work more than 5 hours a day.