Hard skills have gradually lost importance in favor of soft skills, especially with the proliferation of artificial intelligence, which have proven to be a crucial asset in terms of employability and entrepreneurial success. In fact, the comprehensive Youth Work and Entrepreneurial Learning report (2016), demonstrates that entrepreneurial learning and its associated soft skill development, is particularly powerful when taking place in non-formal and informal settings, including youth work. The SOFTIMPROVE initiative intends to translate it into actionable learning strategies and provide employed and unemployed professionals and aspiring and confirmed entrepreneurs with the soft skills necessary for employability, career and business success while creating synergies between vocational education and training and non-formal entrepreneurial learning settings.

The main motivation behind the presentation of this project is the idea, stated in the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, that "investing in entrepreneurship education is one of the highest return investments Europe can make", combined with the conviction that soft-skills hide the key to unlock additional potential in young professionals and entrepreneurs. As a result, we have seen the multiplication of initiatives promoting entrepreneurial learning across the board, from vocational education and training organisations to non-formal entrepreneurial learning in youth organisations. Today, a substantial body of evidence demonstrates that possessing soft skills predict a wide range of life outcomes, in particular employability, career advancement, and entrepreneurial success (Kerr, 2018, Krueger, 2015).

The goal of SoftImprove is to provide professionals and entrepreneurs with the knowledge and practice of soft skills needed to enhance their employability, improve their career prospects or increase their chance of success as entrepreneurs. In this paper we will focus in describing the work done and results obtained in analyzing the “impacts of soft skills on employability, career, and business”. The purpose of this work was to investigate the effect of soft skill on job seekers’ attractiveness, employees’ performance and career’s prospect and business’ success across Europe. We started by mapping soft skills, since soft skills terminology and meaning are often vague, multi-semantic and intertwined. Based upon this mapping, the team has carried out quantitative surveys and qualitative semi-structured interviews to determine the impacts of soft skills as perceived by job seekers, employees, and entrepreneurs.

We also followed the grouping proposal foreseen by academic studies in France and Iceland and based on the research eLene4work adapted from MAULÉON F., BOURET J.ET HOARAU J. (2014), it has been adapted consequentially from the findings of the interviews and findings conducted. As a result, interpersonal, named finally as “Personal Skills”, intrapersonal, named finally as “Social Skills”, "Methodological Skills", kept as original and "Digital Skills", which were introduced in all categories as a transversal skill as it touches as a cross cutting competence, them all.

To be able to develop a tailored training on soft skills for the target groups, a survey and an interview have been created. The target group includes job seekers, employees, and entrepreneurs from Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Estonia and Iceland. As a result, we interviewed 360 individuals from the target group.

Keywords: Soft skills, employability, entrepreneurship, digital skills, social skills, methodological skills, personal skills.