For years, we have talked about the importance of soft skills in finding a job, starting a successful business, or adapting to a constantly changing job market.

The question is no longer whether these skills matter. Scientific evidence has shown for years that factors such as responsibility, openness to change, collaboration, and emotional regulation influence academic, professional, and personal performance.

The real question is a different one:
How do we measure them objectively?

And once we know what they are:

How do we help people develop them?

These were some of the central questions addressed in the webinar “Soft Skills That Can Be Measured and Improved: AI Applied to Employability and Entrepreneurship,” moderated by María Beunza, CEO of Human AI, alongside three organizations that are already using artificial intelligence to transform their career guidance, training, and talent development programs.

The cases of DEMA Bizkaia, the Navarre Employment Service, and the Córdoba Crea Futuro program highlight something particularly important: AI does not replace guidance counselors, teachers, or specialists. It enables them to work with better information.

From Subjective Assessment to Evidence-Based Development

One of the major historical challenges in career guidance has been the reliance on methods that are time-consuming or prone to self-perception biases. 

We know that people tend to assess themselves in a biased way when answering questionnaires about themselves. At Human AI, we’ve been researching this phenomenon for years and developing methodologies based on psycholinguistic analysis to obtain more objective information about personality and social-emotional competencies from natural language. 

However, having data only makes sense when that data helps us make better decisions.

The three projects shared during the webinar are a good example of this.

DEMA Bizkaia: Incorporating Social-Emotional Skills from the Very Beginning

Isabel Muela, deputy director of the Bizkaia Provincial Agency for Employment and Entrepreneurship (DEMA), presented several initiatives in which social-emotional skills are already an integral part of the support processes.

One of the most significant examples is the Bizkaia School of Entrepreneurship, a platform that trains more than 1,200 entrepreneurs each year.

The process begins with “Classroom 0,” a skills assessment. Before starting the training, participants can voluntarily take an assessment of their social-emotional skills via free-form text or voice, and they subsequently receive a personalized report with recommendations for improvement.

As Muela explained, approximately half of the participants have already completed this initial assessment, and participation continues to grow.

The reasoning behind this decision is simple: if we want to develop skills, we first need to know where we’re starting from.

DEMA has also incorporated this methodology into other employability programs.

ANESCA: Self-Awareness to Improve Job Placement

The ANESCA program, which has been in operation for over a decade, addresses aspects such as:

•    Self-awareness

•    Personal branding

•    Digitalization

•    Professional presentation

The program achieves a job placement rate of nearly 60%, relying on a combination of guidance, support, and skills development.

EMAKUM+45: Combating Algorithmic Exclusion

Another case study shared was EMAKUM+45, aimed at unemployed female executives over the age of 45.

The program was created in response to an increasingly evident reality: many experienced professionals face difficulties accessing highly digitized recruitment processes.

In this context, work on self-esteem, self-awareness, and career reorientation takes on particular importance.

An open AI school for companies

DEMA has also launched an AI School for businesses in Bizkaia, focused on making artificial intelligence accessible to organizations and professionals through practical content on:

•    Understanding AI

•    Use cases

•    Productivity

•    E-commerce

This initiative reflects a recurring theme throughout the webinar: technology only creates value when people know how to use it.

Navarre Employment Service: Identifying Needs Before Problems Arise

Amaya Bengoechea, head of the Labor Activation and Territorial Coordination Service at SNE-NL, shared her experience integrating Human AI into the Iturrondo training model.

Her goal was clear: to shift from developing cross-cutting competencies based on intuition to doing so based on evidence.

The tool generates three levels of complementary information:

1.    An individual report for each participant.

2.    A group analysis for teachers and counselors.

3.    A lesson plan with specific activities to address the identified needs.

This approach made it possible to observe dynamics that normally become apparent too late.

For example, in some programs, it was possible to identify early signs of demotivation or the risk of dropping out, facilitating preventive interventions.

In other cases, the information gathered helped identify strengths relevant to entrepreneurship or self-employment.

One of the most interesting insights shared by Bengoechea was that technology is particularly valuable when accompanied by adequate training.

Successful implementation required:

•    Technical training for teachers.

•    Training in interpreting reports.

•    Social-emotional skills training.

•    Integration into programs of sufficient duration.

His conclusion summed up much of the spirit of the meeting:

AI amplifies the counselor’s capabilities; it does not replace them.

It allows us to move from late diagnosis to preventive diagnosis starting from the very first sessions of the program.

Córdoba Crea Futuro: Understanding the Human Factor on a Large Scale

The third case study was presented by Andrés Pallaro, director of the Observatory of the Future at Universidad Siglo 21.

Córdoba Crea Futuro is a workforce retraining program launched by the Province of Córdoba (Argentina) to train thousands of people in emerging fields related to the digital economy.

The scale of the project is particularly significant:

•    More than 16,000 people expressed interest.

•    Nearly 9,000 forms were completed.

•    More than 6,000 participants were enrolled.

•    Thousands of people are currently taking the course.

Initially, the plan was to use the assessment as an admissions tool.

However, as the project evolved, Human AI was integrated into the training process itself.

More than 1,500 participants completed the linguistic analysis exercise, generating one of the program’s most interesting socio-emotional databases.

The results made it possible to identify collective patterns that are difficult to observe using traditional methods.

Among these were:

•    High levels of kindness.

•    High openness to change.

•    A positive attitude toward achievement.

•    Tensions between ambition and organization.

•    High levels of anxiety associated with the context of economic transformation.

Beyond the specific data, the main value lay in the opportunity to better understand what people need to adapt to changing work environments.

The information gathered will enable us in the future to:

•    Improve retention in training programs.

•    Tailor professional development initiatives.

•    Develop professional value propositions that go beyond the traditional curriculum.

•    Gain a better understanding of the human impact of transformation processes.

Measure to Develop

One idea emerged repeatedly across all three experiences.

Social-emotional competencies are not an afterthought.

They are a factor that directly influences employability, entrepreneurship, lifelong learning, and adaptability.

The OECD has been pointing out for years that these competencies can be developed and that they have a significant impact on educational outcomes, employment, and well-being.

Therefore, the challenge is no longer simply to recognize their importance.

The challenge is to have tools that allow us to rigorously identify them, understand them, and take action based on them.

Because when a person receives useful information about themselves, when a counselor can intervene before a problem arises, or when an institution can design programs based on evidence rather than just intuition, social-emotional skills cease to be an abstract concept.

They become a real opportunity for growth.

And that is precisely the potential of artificial intelligence applied to human development: to support those who help others and to transform data into decisions that improve people's lives.