Relevant skills for most jobs are both technical and social, I think you’re implying that the decision is often made purely on social skill sets when technical are what matters and I see this differently.

If I’m hiring for an Architect for example, I am expecting them to help grow and guide developers, engineers, analysts, and administrators while collaborating with stakeholders AND possessing relevant domain technical expertise. Only having the domain technical expertise isn’t useful without the social skill set to leverage it.

Similarly if I’m hiring for an engineer, in expecting them to work with other engineers, their architect, their analysts, and their supervisors AND have relevant domain expertise. Again if they only have one half of that they aren’t actually functional.

It does change for entry level roles, and this may be an unpopular take… but for entry level roles I could care less about your technical knowledge… I’m looking for people who are entering this domain and can demonstrate intangibles like initiative, curiosity, and…. social skills. These are much better leading indicators of success as they are harder to teach and train, and frankly if they have those skills I can trust that the senior roles around them will help develop their technical skills.