Groh, MatthewKirshnan, NandiniMcKenzie, DavidVishwanath, Tara2019-03-122019-03-122016-05-13IZA Journal of Labor and Developmenthttps://hdl.handle.net/10986/31377Employers around the world complain that youth lack the soft skills needed for success in the workplace. In response, a number of employment programs have begun to incorporate soft skills training, but to date there has been little evidence as to the effectiveness of such programs. This paper reports on a randomized experiment in Jordan in which female community college graduates were randomly assigned to a soft skills training program. Despite this program being twice as long in length as the average program in the region, and taught by a well-regarded provider, we find soft skills training does not have any significant employment impact in three rounds of follow-up surveys. We elicit expectations of academics and development professionals and reveal that these findings are novel and unexpected.CC BY 4.0SOFT SKILLSLABOR SKILLSSKILLS DEVELOPMENTUNEMPLOYMENTYOUTH EMPLOYMENTRANDOMIZED EXPERIMENTEXPECTATION ELICITATIONTRAININGGENDERJournal ArticleWorld Bank10.1596/31377