Know-how. Soft skills. Knowing how to combine.

For a long time, we liked to keep things separate.

On one side, technical skills. The ones we learn, certify and list quite easily on a CV.

On the other, human skills. The ability to communicate, adapt, work with others or exercise leadership.

Hard skills. Soft skills.

The distinction is convenient.

I am simply no longer sure it really describes what we are looking for today.

Because when we look at the profiles that become particularly valuable to an organisation, it is often not a single skill that makes the difference.

It is a combination.

They must understand them, of course.

But they must also be able to explain them to someone who does not share their technical expertise.

Turn an analysis into a decision.

Influence without necessarily having hierarchical authority.

Understand what lies behind the data.

The same is true of many other professions.

An HR expert who truly understands technology no longer sees their profession in quite the same way.

An engineer able to make a complex subject accessible to a client has something beyond technical expertise.

A salesperson with deep knowledge of their industry no longer simply sells a product.

And a leader may have a remarkable vision; they still need to be able to bring other people along with them.

Taken separately, each of these skills may seem fairly classic.

It is their combination that becomes interesting.

I have always found the term a little strange.

As if some skills were less solid, less measurable and, ultimately, perhaps a little less important than others.

Yet the more complex organisations become, the harder some of these skills seem to do without.

Truly knowing how to listen.

Changing one's point of view when the facts require it.

Explaining an unpopular decision.

Building trust.

Understanding someone who does not work the way you do.

None of them replaces professional expertise.

But professional expertise can sometimes lose much of its value when it fails to connect with others.

This is perhaps why the notion of hybrid skills interests me more.

Not because we should now be able to do everything.

That would be another illusion.

But because the value of a profile may increasingly lie in its ability to bring together several skills that we have grown used to looking at separately.

Part of what used to take a lot of time can now be assisted, automated or accelerated.

Finding information.

Producing a first analysis.

Structuring a document.

Comparing data.

Some technical skills will not disappear for all that. They will evolve.

And perhaps one question will gradually become more important:

What can you do with what technology now allows you to do faster?

The issue is then no longer just mastering the tool.

It becomes the ability to interpret, question, contextualise and then decide.

AI does not, therefore, make technical skills less important.

It may, however, change the combination that creates value around them.

A CV naturally remains organised into categories.

Education. Experience. Roles. Skills. Languages.

This is necessary. Information has to be structured.

But the person behind that document is rarely so neatly arranged.

Volunteer work may have developed leadership skills that a job title does not convey.

Time spent in a small company may have taught someone to decide with very little information.

An international experience may have changed a way of communicating.

Even a professional detour seemingly far from one's current role may have left a skill that became essential a few years later.

Not everything has the same value, of course.

But everything sometimes deserves to be looked at before being dismissed.

We naturally tend to invest in what we already do well.

Adding a certification.

Deepening an area of expertise.

Mastering a new tool.

It is useful.

But perhaps we should sometimes ask ourselves another question:

Not necessarily a spectacular skill.

For a technical expert, it may be communication.

For someone who communicates remarkably well, greater analytical depth.

For an experienced manager, a better understanding of data or AI.

For a young professional very comfortable with new tools, learning to listen before wanting to provide an answer.

The answer will be different for everyone.

And that is precisely what makes the question interesting.

I understand why.

Companies need criteria. So do recruiters.

A role must have a scope. A search has to start somewhere.

But after almost twenty years of looking at career paths, I pay more and more attention to what happens between the boxes.

To skills that echo one another.

To those that seem far apart but become powerful when brought together.

To what a person can do, of course, but also to what they can do differently thanks to the combination of what they have learned.

Perhaps tomorrow, the most sought-after profiles will be neither the most technical nor the most “soft”.

They will simply be those who have found the right combination for their environment.

And that combination will probably never be quite the same.