**6. Conclusions**

Later, it is opportune to rescue other soft skills whose interest grows over time, finding more and more references in recent literature: competitiveness, customer service, initiative and/or

To conclude, from the compilation of the soft skills developed, it is opportune to discuss how these skills can be grouped, for which how the authors have organized them is analyzed.

Cheng, Dainty and Moore, and Le Deist and Winterton, in the context of human resources

In the same vein, Binkley et al. organize twenty-first century skills into three groups [83]:

• Behavioral development: improving (or enhancing) the underlying social behaviors and

• Professional development: obtaining (or maintaining) a professional certification or accreditation

• Compliance: helping employers become legally compliant with legislated standards

Communication Empathy and/or sensitiveness Coordination and/or cooperation

entrepreneurship Influence and/or persuasiveness

Similarly, Onisk classifies generic soft skills into three broad categories [86]:

According to classifications studied, selected skills are organized in **Table 9**.

Active learning Competitiveness Attention to diversity

Decision making Leadership Marketing and publicity

resolution Motivation Mentoring and/or training

Creativity Ethics and/or integrity Customer service

Results orientation Professionalism and/or reliability Negotiation Self-reflection and self-management Sustainability Teamwork

**Table 9.** Traceability of intra- and interpersonal skills from education to labor market.

Critical thinking Initiative and/or

**Intrapersonal Interpersonal Cognitive Individual Social**

entrepreneurship, marketing and publicity, and sustainability.

management, classify competences into three groups [84, 85]:

• Functional (job-specific skills)

• Ways and tools for working

influencing capabilities

Problem solving and/or conflict

• Ways of thinking

• Living in the world

• Social (behavioral and attitudinal)

102 Human Capital and Competences in Project Management

• Cognitive (knowledge and understanding)

Despite there are different definitions for intra- and interpersonal skills' set, a general consensus about its main characteristics can be made: they are social abilities, individual attributes, and cognitive attitudes. They are also called as twenty-first century skills, essential skills, human skills, professional skills, and/or soft skills.

Intra- and interpersonal skills are currently essential for both individual careers and organizational success, being identified by many employers as the number one differentiator, regardless of the type of organization. Importance of intra- and interpersonal skills has increased more and more over last years among new employees.

The gap between skill levels that employers need from recent graduates and new employees versus skill development grade they own is growing. To decrease the contrast between supply and demand, the implementation of training programs throughout all educational stages is required, from high school to university.

Into a knowledge-based economy, with abundant unskilled human resources, it is time to train recent graduates with properly employable skills. It is necessary to emphasize that education should focus not only on core academic subject mastery, but also on intra- and interpersonal skills development.

Labor market demands that employees acquire and/or improve their intra- and interpersonal skills around three dimensions:


PM competencies approach can be used to develop and perfect intra- and interpersonal skills of employees, through formation programs that train how to be aware culturally and politically, be effective, integrous, professional, related, reliable and resourceful, build trust, coach, communicate, engage, influence, lead, make decisions, manage, motivate, negotiate, orientate to results, resolve conflicts, and work as a team.

Training practices of PM by competencies can be introduced in education. In fact, PM proposals are included on theoretical educational frameworks exposed (defining, designing and managing projects and setting goals, besides balancing, executing, evaluating, interacting, monitoring, organizing, planning, prioritizing, among other actions intrinsically related to leading projects).

In the context of Portugal, Spain, and Latin America countries, the theoretical frameworks that cover the different educational stages include most of the soft skills selected:

