A 2017 Wall Street Journal survey found that employers have a very or somewhat difficult time finding people with the requisite soft skills. But what if employers are looking for soft skills and are not seeing them? The vast majority of mid-size and large employers in the US, UK and Canada utilize Applicant Tracking Systems. There are more employers that claim soft skills are hard to find than hard skills Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) make it possible for employers to post new positions online and manage the hundreds of applicants who typically respond to each opportunity. No human hiring manager reviews hundreds of applications. Instead, the ATS produces a manageable number of viable candidates for the hiring manager to review. How does the ATS do this? It's not magic, but rather a keyword-based filter, comparing resumes to the posted job description, and passing through candidates who appear to be a better match. The keyword-based filter at the top of the hiring funnel of most employers has a number of interesting knock-on effects. One is the phenomenon of resume spam: candidates who literally copy the job description in white font into their resume in order to get past the screen. A second is an...