How to spot candidates with the soft skills you need

Hiring someone for a role can be a tricky task as you’ll need to balance different aspects and weigh them up in order to pick the right candidate for the position. While some skills are easy to measure and obtain evidence for, others can be a challenge to spot. So-called soft skills, such as the ability to work in a team and organise workloads, are often vital for a job but many employers highlight these as areas where candidates are lacking.

With some employers finding there is a skills gap when it comes to soft skills it makes the ability to spot those with the ones you need even more crucial. Next time you need to hire an individual using some of these strategies could help you find the perfect fit for the role.

Build an effective job description

Hard skills are often the first components that make up a job description or personal specification. But to be effective the soft skills need to be considered just as important from the outset. Building an effective job profile that balances hard and soft skills means you’ll be focused on both aspects when applications start landing in your inbox.

Look at training undertaken

While not definitive, training or courses that candidates have undertaken can suggest what soft skills they may have. Some colleges and universities now run soft skills programmes, such as ones focusing on effective communication or problem solving, alongside their standard curriculum.

Ask open behavioural questions

During the interview phase of the recruitment process it can be useful to ask behavioural questions and encourage candidates to use examples from their past to highlight how they would respond. For instance, you could ask ‘How would you manage a conflict within the team?’ or ‘Give me an example of when you had to manage customer expectations?’.

Use psychometric testing

Psychometric assessments, which aim to measure a candidate’s aptitudes and personality, can be a useful tool for understanding their abilities. The test will present a series of questions or scenarios for the candidate to complete and afterwards you’ll be presented with the results showing, for example, how flexible they are or if they can work in a team effectively.

Realise that soft skills can be developed

If you find a candidate that fits your ethos and has many of the other skills you’re looking for you don’t necessarily have to discount them. Like hard skills, soft skills can be developed and improved over time, especially at a company that has a focus on them.

Tags: soft skills employees, soft skills recruiters, how to spot soft skills, soft skills employers