Soft Skills Interview Questions

Introduction

Think of hiring an account manager. You have two candidates that have marketing degrees, are familiar with the CRM program that your business utilizes, and have two years of relevant work experience. How will you make your hiring decision? You can distinguish between them by using soft skills.

Define which soft skills are crucial for your vacant position at the outset of your hiring process and construct questions around those. To get you started, here are a few sample soft skills interview questions. Visit our database of interview questions by type for more soft skills-based questions.

Examples of interview questions for soft skills

Adaptability

• What difficulties do you encounter the most while beginning a new job?
• Tell me about a time when a project you were working on saw a substantial change in scope. What did you do to keep your staff motivated, and how did you modify your work?

Leadership

• Have you ever let go of a worker? If that's the case, why did you have to let them go, and how did you let them know?
• How do you inspire your team members to work hard on difficult projects? Please include a personal experience example.

Management of time

• How would you set yourself up if you were given several assignments at once to complete on time while maintaining high quality?
• Describe an occasion when you ran late. What went wrong, and what would you change if you could?

Collaboration

• Describe an instance when you had to work with a coworker with whom you didn't get along. How did you act?
• What would you do if all of your suggestions were rejected by the team?

Communication

• What would you say or do to capture your audience's attention if you were presenting ideas in a meeting and they didn't seem interested?
• How can you placate irate clients?

Decision-making

• Describe an instance when you made a controversial choice. How did you respond to the criticism? What actions would you have taken differently?
• How should decisions be made when working on a collective project?

Examining soft skills in interviews: How to do it

• Analyze your previous work habits. It can be challenging to assess soft skills the same way you assess hard abilities, such as through tests or inquiries like "What programming languages do you know?" You can learn more about if and how candidates apply these abilities at work by using behavioral interview questions.
• Construct suppositional scenarios. Examine the candidates' responses to hypothetical events that might arise at work. When interviewing prospects, think about asking situational questions or assigning larger projects that mirror job responsibilities.
• Utilize a grading scale. To gauge how satisfactorily candidates responded during interviews, create scorecards. For instance, you can assess candidates' responses using rating scales or a pass/fail system.
• Ask the same questions to all candidates. Make sure you ask the same questions to all candidates in the same order in order to prevent bias from creeping into the interview process. Making unbiased hiring selections is made simpler when it is possible to compare their responses.

Red flags to note

• They offer pre-written responses. Questions like "Describe your involvement in a team project" and "How do you manage deadlines" are likely to be anticipated by candidates. Your interviews should include fictitious situations that call for quick thinking in order to detect individuals that provide sincere responses.
• They are contradictory. If you want to know if candidates have a certain soft talent mastered, ask them more than one question. Compare candidates' responses to questions with their email communication and their performance in role-playing exercises, for instance, if you're searching for a skilled communicator.
• They don't give any concrete examples. Generic responses don't reveal anything about how applicants apply their skills in the workplace. To acquire clarity, ask follow-up questions. Candidates that are qualified will be able to connect soft skills to practical experiences.
• They don't fit the culture. soft skills are not always clear-cut. Candidates with the same trait, such as leadership, may apply it in different ways. For instance, they may be good decision-makers and offer team members precise instructions, or they may inspire trust and foster innovation. Choose applicants that utilize their soft skills in ways that are compatible with the needs of your firm and industry.

Conclusion

These Soft skills interview questions combine a summary of the qualities to look for in applicants with a representative sample of appropriate interview questions.

You can prepare your responses in advance and be prepared to discuss your experience with the interviewer by practicing how you will respond to these Soft skills interview questions.