I think "being...and... is/are..." are both OK depending on what you want to say. For example: "Being nice and friendly is better than being horrible." "Being nice and friendly are great traits to have. In your sentence, I would use "is" as you have no plural afterwards. If you said "necessary requirements", then I would use "are".

To my ear "is" sounds better. I think it's right because the subject is "being" which is singular. "Persuasive" and "assertive" are adjectives that modify "being".

"Is" sounds better to me. I parse it as "being is necessary," that is to say "being persuasive-and-assertive is necessary..." It is possible to hear it "being persuasive and assertive" as an abbreviated form of "being persuasive and being assertive," so that you mentally supply the second "being" and the sentence becomes "being and being are necessary..." If I were faced with the problem of writing this sentence in real life, I'd sigh and rewrite it so as to sidestep the problem: In this job, it is necessary to be persuasive and assertive.

Here is more explanation: ======================================== "is" and "are" are both forms of the verb "to be" "is" is singular, "are" is plural. Choose the correct form depending on the subject of the sentence. If you're having trouble, make sure you know what the subject of the sentence really is. For example, The kids are waiting for the movie to start. -- the subject is "kids" which is plural, so you use "are" vs. The group of kids is waiting for the movie to start -- the subject is "group" which is singular (you can have more than one group) so you use "is" This is tricky because a group of kids is more than one person, but it's still a singular subject. If you're still having trouble, try re-writing the sentence without the modifiers to isolate the subject. In our examples, this would be... The kids ARE waiting vs The group IS waiting -----read more @ https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080316005353AAcV1hO ======================================================

Hi Lilly: You have a PLURAL subject, so ARE would be appropriate. PERSUASIVE and ASSERTIVE ARE necessary. If you were only saying that being PERSUASIVE was critical, you would write or say that "being persuasive IS necessary". Alternatively, you could write or say that "being assertive IS necessary". But when you are writing about a plurality, you need to use ARE. .