If you’re in a position to hire workers for your team, you have an important responsibility. What happens when you are interviewing for an open position, and you have a few candidates who seem like they are both very qualified in their skills and experience? Soft skills are often what will set one candidate apart from another when otherwise, they may have the same potential.
What are Soft Skills?
Soft skills are qualities that help make an employee well-rounded. These skills are attractive to employers regardless of a candidate’s degree, and they are important to every job in any industry.
Soft Skills & The Questions to Ask a Candidate
While there are many soft skills, here are a few that may be important to you and some questions to determine whether the candidate you’re interviewing has them or not.
Communication
Both written and verbal communication skills are extremely important in the workplace, no matter what industry. An effective communicator can boost the performance of the entire team by creating relationships with coworkers. They also tend to seek clarity for job expectations and ask questions to better understand the details of projects so they can make fewer errors.
Questions to Ask:
- If you’re presenting ideas during a meeting and your audience seems disengaged, what would you do to get their attention?
- How do you calm angry customers?
Adaptability
No matter how hard you try, the office will not run perfectly. That’s why it’s so important that workers are adaptable to be successful in unideal situations. An employee who can stay motivated, positive, and flexible during changes in the job one that will foster success in their own position and inspire it with the team as well.
Questions to Ask:
- What are the biggest challenges you face when starting a new job?
- Tell me about a time when the scope of a project you were working on changed significantly. How did you adjust your work and what did you do to ensure your team stayed motivated?
Teamwork
A company is successful when their employees work together. An employee that is able to work as a team player toward a common goal instead of only working in a silo, alone, is a great find. Teamwork will: utilize the strengths of each member, and it will also help create a healthy company culture. Altogether, teamwork will enhance the quality of work at the entire company.
Questions to Ask:
- Tell me about a time you had to work with a colleague you didn’t get along with. What did you do?
- What would you do if your team rejected all of your ideas?
Time Management
Many workers have to wear many hats and juggle different responsibilities throughout their day. Employers should look to hire a candidate who has a proven track record of effective time management. This skill is often acquired, especially when using various software programs, so there may be a learning curve. While you might find someone who doesn’t know your company’s software programs or systems for projects, you should look for a candidate who demonstrates the ability to stay focused.
Questions to Ask:
- If you were assigned multiple tasks at the same time, how would you organize yourself to produce quality work under tight deadlines?
- Describe a time you fell behind schedule. What went wrong and what would you do differently next time?
Need Help Finding the Right Workers?
If you need help finding the right workers for your company, contact the local recruiting professionals at Expert Staffing.