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People skills: why they matter: "The Association of Graduate Recruiters reckons soft skills are important: The AGR said as well as academic achievement employers want good team-workers who can communicate properly and have cultural awareness...The association's chief executive, Carl Gilleard, said: 'Employers are likely to be looking to graduates who can demonstrate softer skills such as team-working, cultural awareness, leadership and communication skills, as well as academic achievement.' I've said that this might be a barrier to social mobility. These guys reckon increased demand for soft skills explains the narrowing in the gender pay gap since the 1970s, although they say the process is now slowing. But why are soft skills increasingly important?One possibility is that they are technologically necessary, as they are for sales occupations. But there's another possibility . What employers really want are workers they can trust - workers who have internalized capitalist disciplines into their very personalities and so don't need external supervision, the cost of which has increased since the demise of old-fashioned mass production.  Soft skills are correlated with these personal traits, being euphemisms for 'middle-class'. This classic paper (pdf) explains."