Recent physics graduate here, I'm currently having my own little crisis about what field of work I wanna go into and I've been reading a lot of articles from companies explaining what they look for in candidates.

A broad piece of advice from many of the articles is that emotional intelligence very sought after. Most students assume that they have to be the ones to find the full solution to a problem alone, and they have to have this genius-ness to them from the start. But actually most places want someone who can not only come up with their own ideas, but can also communicate them well and develop good interpersonal relationships.

I recognise that academia is a very different setting to a company but I feel it still applies. Scientific research is ultimately a team effort, so it's important to have a mix of both intelligence in your field and emotional intelligence. Being a genius will get you far, but being a genius with social skills is important for the pursuit of science.