It’s easy to see if a candidate looks good in terms of academic qualifications, certifications, and degrees. However, determining whether they are good in actual performance is another ball game.
We are talking about the soft skills of the applicants. In order to thrive in the workplace, good candidates should exhibit a set of soft skills like communication, collaboration, and adaptability.
Employees with the highest productivity are usually the ones that demonstrate the right soft skills in addition to job knowledge and technical expertise.
But how do you tell if the candidate has required soft skills to match with your company’s needs?
This can be accomplished by asking the right questions during the interview.
How to Evaluate the Soft Skills of a Candidate
Here are some quick tips to help you appraise a candidate’s soft skills in an interview:
Put them in hypothetical scenarios
You can test how a candidate would handle a particular situation that’s likely to occur at the workplace. Ask them situational questions about a project to simulate day-to-day job duties.
Consider past work behaviors
One of the sure shot ways to gauge the soft skills of a candidate is to ask them behavioral questions. These are questions that request specific examples from the applicant about their past behavior on the job.
Create scorecards
In order to gauge how satisfying a candidate’s answers are, you can create scorecards. For example, you can use a pass/fail system or rating scale to get an accurate measure of their answers.
25 Interview Questions to Assess a Candidate’s Soft Skills
Initiative and Involvement
- Tell me about a time you did more than what was needed in your previous job.
- How well did your last big idea work out?
Communication and Engagement
- Have you ever given instructions that someone failed to follow? Why do you think that happened?
- Tell me about a proposal you had to pitch. How did you do? Why do you think it went that way?
Decision-Making
- Tell me about a work-related problem that you had to face recently. How did you handle resolving the issue?
- What was the toughest decision you had to make recently?
Integrity and Commitment
- Did you ever have to deal with a colleague who wasn’t working as hard as everyone else on the team? How did you deal with that?
- Do you think some rules are meant to be obeyed more than others?
Persuasiveness
- Tell me about the best idea you have ever sold to a superior. How well did you do?
- Describe the strategies you think work best when trying to influence someone’s perspective.
- Tell me about your best idea that you failed to sell.
Leadership
- Have you ever had to gain cooperation from a group over which you had little authority? How effective do you think you were?
- Have you ever had to present a new idea or process at work? What steps did you take to ensure cooperation?
- Have you ever had to solve someone else’s problem? Tell me how you did it?
Planning and Goal-Setting
- How do you decide your top priorities?
- How do you plan your work week?
- How do you set short- and long-term goals?
Supervision and Managerial Skills
- What do you think is the number one thing that differentiates a superior employee from an average one?
- What steps did you take to make your group more efficient?
- Tell me how you confront workers that are underperforming.
- How do you track your staff’s performance?
- Give me an example of your ability to encourage progressive change within your organization.
Sales Skills
- Describe the best way to find new leads.
- Tell me about the main types of people to whom you sell. What strategies do you use for each group?
Key Takeaway
Make sure to ask the same questions from all the candidates to assess their soft skills. Also, in order to avoid introducing any bias during interviews, ask the same set of questions in the same order. This will make it easier to compare the candidates’ answers and make the most effective hiring decisions.
