Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills in 2025: What matters most when hiring?
In 2025, talking about skills in tech is no longer as simple as separating the technical from the human. The rise of generative AI has changed the rules: today, a startup can automate much of the hard skills work, but still needs people who can adapt, lead, and think critically.
Hard Skills: the technical foundation that still matters
Hard skills remain the entry ticket: programming, data, AI engineering, cloud, cybersecurity. In tech-first startups, their importance is obvious.
They enable execution of specific tasks.
They’re measurable and easy to certify.
They usually define the first stage of the hiring process.
The challenge? With AI, many hard skills are becoming commoditized. Writing code, generating reports, or building a dashboard can be done in minutes with the right tool.
Soft Skills: the real differentiator
This is where soft skills step in: communication, resilience, leadership, critical thinking, and collaboration in distributed environments.
They cannot be automated.
They turn an employee from someone who just executes into someone who solves and innovates.
They shape culture and define a team’s ability to scale under uncertainty.
Harvard and the World Economic Forum agree: companies that value soft skills like active learning, analytical thinking, and emotional intelligence build more innovative and sustainable teams.
What matters more when hiring in 2025?
The answer is: it depends on the stage of the startup.
Early stage → hard skills weigh more, because you need to build product fast.
Growth stage → soft skills become critical, as the team needs alignment, collaboration, and scalability.
AI-first startups → the balance shifts: hard skills lean on AI, while soft skills ensure judgment, leadership, and vision.
What we see at Webstarted
Working with startups in the U.S. and LATAM, we see a clear trend: founders who evaluate both hard and soft skills end up with the best hires. A resume shows technical skills, but it’s the soft skills that ensure talent will fit in, innovate, and stay.
💡 Final Thoughts If you're building an AI-first startup and struggling to hire the right talent, you're not alone. But you don’t need to do it alone, either.
Let’s talk about how LATAM talent can be your unfair advantage.
📅 Book a call → webstarted.com/schedule-a-call 🔗 Learn more → webstarted.com/early-stage
