In the job market, the terms hard skills and soft skills have already become part of everyday vocabulary. However, a new concept that complements them has emerged recently and is already creating quite a buzz among recruiters and professionals. We’re talking about mad skills, or “exceptional” skills.
In a nutshell, we can define mad skills as skills developed outside the curriculum, that is, not through courses, training programs, etc. Unlike hard skills, which are acquired through formal study, and soft skills, which are traits inherent to each person’s personality and life experience, mad skills arise mainly through hobbies and personal interests.
Remember all the articles we’ve published here on Fapuga News about how the gaming universe and the business world converge with some frequency? Mad skills are yet another side of that connection. But games aren’t the only examples of mad skills. Things like film, music, the arts, sports, gastronomy, photography and collecting also fall into this category.
In today’s article, you’ll find out what mad skills are and why more and more companies value them when recruiting members for their teams.
Contents
- What are mad skills?
- The impact of mad skills on everyday professional life
- Standing out in hiring processes with mad skills
What are mad skills?
Mad skills are all the skills a person develops outside a professional or educational context. These skills challenge traditional notions of what makes a professional well qualified for a position.
More than that, mad skills are skills that impress, that defy recruiters’ expectations. The “madness” in the name isn’t literal: it refers to the intensity and exceptional nature of the knowledge and hobbies.
When introduced to this concept, many people may even ask themselves, “After all, what do someone’s pastimes have to do with their professional abilities?” The answer is: everything. Mad skills are what make each professional unique in their own way.
The fact that someone has well-defined mad skills says a lot about their personality. After all, unlike a hard skill, for example, which is usually pursued out of necessity or a desire to stand out in the market, the initiative to take up a mad skill is spontaneous and individual, driven by passion and not just by obligation.
The impact of mad skills on everyday professional life
One point we always emphasize here is that leisure-related activities can give rise to skills that transfer to the professional environment. Our main focus is usually games, but the concept of mad skills expands this idea even further.
What professionals do in their free time can reveal a lot about their profile and even about how they will handle the issues and challenges that are part of the work routine.
For example: if a person likes to play a musical instrument, this may indicate that they are creative, disciplined or have good motor coordination.
Staying in the artistic realm, someone who is interested and involved in theater may be a professional with good skills for leading meetings and presentations. Photography lovers, on the other hand, are usually good observers, detail-oriented and sensitive.
Someone who plays team sports may be a professional who works well in a team, knows how to communicate and leads easily, while playing individual sports usually indicates a focused and disciplined person. Someone who does volunteer work, in turn, may have a keen sense of empathy.
Game lovers are usually the most well-rounded when it comes to mad skills. There are games of all kinds, for every taste and personality. That’s why there’s no way to pin down exactly which skills gamers carry over from their hobby: it all depends on what and how each person plays.
Of course, like almost everything in life, mad skills are not an exact science. The traits described above may or may not be found in people who have these hobbies and interests. However, there is no denying that all of this serves as an indication of each person’s profile.
Standing out in hiring processes with mad skills
In the job market, it is often said that soft skills are what truly make a professional stand out in the competitive world of careers. Mad skills come along to join them.
Even though technical abilities, the hard skills, still are and always will be a decisive factor on a professional’s résumé, soft and mad skills come in as major differentiators, since they are what really sets one professional apart from another.
Currently, the most valued soft skills in the market are:
- Teamwork and collaboration;
- Resilience and adaptability;
- Critical thinking and problem-solving;
- Communicating clearly and objectively;
- Emotional intelligence.
Did you notice the connection with everything we covered in the previous sections of our article? We can say that mad skills are also a vehicle for developing soft skills.
In a reality where the task of screening résumés is often left to Artificial Intelligence, a candidate’s personality becomes an increasingly powerful differentiator that humanizes them.
According to a study conducted by HR consulting firm Robert Half, 66% of the recruiters surveyed already value mad skills when evaluating a candidate. According to these employers, activities outside work are a sign that the professional has:
- Balance between professional and personal life;
- Complementary skills;
- Interest in developing in all areas of life;
- Proven leadership skills.
So, the next time you put together a résumé, going beyond the strictly professional can be a real advantage. Share the volunteer and community work you’ve done, your favorite books and sports, etc. But with care and moderation, of course. The balance between personal and professional should stay level.
Had you heard the term mad skills before? Did you have any idea that your hobbies could help you stand out in the professional world? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
References
“Mad skills”: como seus hobbies podem te ajudar a conseguir um emprego
O que são ‘mad skills’ e como hobbies podem ser diferencial na hora de conseguir emprego
