How to Evaluate Soft Skills and Make Informed Hiring Decisions

Interviews are a vital part of the hiring process that help potential employers assess the skills and experience of candidates to determine if they would be a good fit for a job. However, interviewing can be challenging, especially for those who don't do it frequently. If you're an interviewer who needs to sharpen your skills, the first thing to work on is asking open-ended questions.

As a supervisor, you may be used to communicating in a targeted way to maintain focus and alignment within your team. However, this can lead to a communication style that lacks room for conversation to grow during an interview. To address this, use phrases like "tell me about a time when" or "describe a situation where" to encourage candidates to share more about their experiences and soft skills.

It can be helpful to review a candidate's resume before the interview to generate specific questions. For example, if you're hiring a warehouse manager and their resume highlights their experience managing a busy receiving department, you can ask them to describe a typical day and then delve into a specific situation when they had to manage a larger-than-normal number of deliveries.

Another way to use a candidate's resume to generate interview questions is to focus on specific skills or achievements they have listed. For example, if a candidate has listed that they increased sales by 20% in their previous role, you could ask them to describe their approach to achieving this goal and what specific strategies they used. Similarly, if a candidate has listed that they have experience working with a specific software program, you could ask them to describe a time when they had to troubleshoot a problem with the software and how they went about solving it.

It’s also important to ask questions that will have the candidate open up about their personality, emotional intelligence, and soft skills like empathy, teamwork, and discernment.

To assess a candidate's teamwork skills, ask them to describe a challenging team project they were involved in and how they contributed to its success. This question will help you evaluate their communication skills, problem-solving ability, and willingness to collaborate with others.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and it's an essential soft skill for building strong relationships with colleagues, clients, and customers. To assess a candidate's empathy, ask them to describe a situation where they had to put themselves in someone else's shoes to understand their perspective. This question will help you evaluate their listening skills, ability to communicate effectively and relate to others.

Discernment is the ability to make wise decisions that align with the organization's values and goals. To evaluate a candidate's value-based decision-making skills, ask them to describe a challenging ethical dilemma they faced in the workplace and how they resolved it. This question will help you evaluate their critical thinking skills and ability to make tough decisions while upholding standards.

Interviews are a crucial part of the hiring process, and as an interviewer, it's essential to ask open-ended questions that provide candidates with room to express themselves fully. By using a candidate's resume to generate specific questions and focusing on soft skills like teamwork, empathy, and discernment, you can gain valuable insights into their communication style, problem-solving ability, and decision-making skills. Evaluating a candidate's soft skills and personality traits is just as important as assessing their experience and technical abilities, and it can help you build a team that is not only skilled and experienced but also collaborative, empathetic, and aligned with your organization's values. With this approach, you can make more informed hiring decisions that will contribute to the success of your organization in the long term.

For further reading

How to Ask Open-Ended Questions That Spark Good Conversation

Vanessa Van Edwards, a self-proclaimed recovering awkward person, along with her team, sheds light on the remarkable benefits of incorporating open-ended questions into conversations. Elevate your conversations by incorporating these questions, bringing energy, eliminating awkward silences, boosting self-esteem, and fostering open sharing of thoughts and ideas.

About Rhiannon

Rhiannon Woo is a highly experienced Quality Management professional known for her expertise in building quality-focused cultures and high-performing teams. With a deep understanding of the ag-tech, CPG, and cannabis consumables industries, Rhiannon has worked with numerous startups across the United States, providing leadership training and guidance to develop cultures of operational excellence. Her ability to clearly define and communicate expectations has helped entrepreneurs foster quality-driven mindsets within their organizations. Rhiannon's coaching services empower founders to develop clarity and confidence as they scale their businesses or seek funding, teaching them techniques to document and standardize practices while collecting meaningful data for continuous improvement.