Top 5 Soft Skills to Look For When Hiring

A candidate’s skills fall into two categories: hard and soft skills. Hard skills cover practical and technical qualifications, such as industry- or role-specific training, education, and software they can use. Meanwhile, soft skills describe employees’ other essential traits, including their adaptability, collaboration, communication, and emotional intelligence. 

Hiring for soft skills has become increasingly important in the modern workplace. However, these traits can be difficult to measure or assess based on candidates’ applications alone. You must know which soft skills you need and use various strategies to find them. 

Why Are Soft Skills Important?

A candidate’s soft skills, such as adaptability and collaboration, show they can contribute to your team beyond their hard skills and specific training. This versatility is especially critical for organizations’ long-term growth amid industry shifts. 

For example, a tech company searching for a software developer may need candidates who use Python. However, if the industry starts moving toward other programming languages, their employee’s specific Python skills could become irrelevant. So, the tech company should also look for candidates who are adaptable and willing to learn new skills. This way, they can find employees who will benefit the company for years to come beyond the current in-demand hard skills. 

5 Top Soft Skills in the Workplace

When hiring for soft skills, you shouldn’t just rely on one or two qualifications. Instead, you must be aware of which skills are the most important for your organization’s growth. Below are the five of the most vital soft skills in the workplace. 

1. Adaptability

Employees must be able to adapt to different roles, structures, and processes in the modern workplace. Prioritizing adaptability when hiring for soft skills will help you find employees who can stick with your company long term. 

You can often gauge a candidate’s adaptability by reviewing their job experience. For example, an employee is likely easily adaptable if they’ve held different job titles, shown a history of embracing change, developed transferable skills, or readily taken on multiple responsibilities or new challenges with enthusiasm. 

2. Collaboration

Teamwork and collaboration are irreplaceable soft skills that every employee must have. Even if you’re only hiring for a single-person department, your new employee should still be able to communicate and work well with their colleagues. 

Collaborative employees can benefit your organization in many ways, including:

• Boosting productivity on team projects
• Aiding colleagues
• Identifying potential for improvement
• Improving team communication
• Strengthening company culture

3. Time Management

Most hybrid and remote employees are left to their own devices while on the clock. Though some employers structure out each person’s workday, most expect employees to understand their most productive workflows – especially if they have reliable time management skills. 

A candidate with good time management can organize their tasks, set their own goals, and complete them on time. This is about more than understanding how long a particular task could take. Employees should also be able to prioritize certain tasks while spacing out complex projects around their focus hours. 

4. Emotional Intelligence

A person’s emotional intelligence describes how well they recognize and manage their feelings as well as the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence is especially important in hybrid and remote work structures that depend on self-accountability and extra attention to clear and effective communication. Ideally, an employee with high emotional intelligence will also be able to adapt to complex and stressful changes at work, resolve conflicts, and help foster a positive workplace. 

The five components of emotional intelligence include:

• Empathy
• Self-awareness
• Social awareness
• Self-management and internal motivation
• Relationship management

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5. Communication

An employee with strong communication skills should be able to seamlessly share and receive information across various channels. At a base level, they should respond to texts, emails, messages, and calls in a timely manner. Beyond that, they should readily share ideas, know when to ask for clarification, be active listeners, and contribute to a collaborative culture.

For example, if they need to share important information with a coworker, they shouldn’t just mention it in passing. Instead, a good communicator may also send a detailed email that colleagues can reference later. These communication skills can have long-term impacts on your organization. 

Fortunately, you can gauge a candidate’s communication skills during the entire hiring process. Throughout your interactions with them, pay attention to how quickly each candidate responds and how they do it. A candidate who responds promptly in complete sentences will usually have better communication skills than someone who waits a week and has typos in their emails.

How to Assess Soft Skills When Hiring

Each candidate has their own combination of soft and hard skills, so there’s no universal method for evaluating their qualifications. Instead, you should judge various factors of each candidate’s application, including their resume, cover letter, interview, and assessment results. Browse any previous job experiences that seemingly required candidates to adapt to different roles, collaborate with others, or lead initiatives. 

A soft skills assessment or test can further pinpoint each candidate’s abilities. You can direct each test toward specific skills you’re looking for, such as time management or problem-solving. You must also spend time structuring and writing your interview questions around each role’s essential soft skills.

Consider the following examples of soft skills interview questions:

• What’s your approach to staying organized and focused on your responsibilities?
• Can you describe a time when you took on additional responsibilities at work?
• Can you describe how you responded to workplace changes amid the COVID-19 work shifts?
• What challenges might you face when working remotely?
• What would be your ideal form of communication in a hybrid or remote workplace?
• How would you rate your communication skills?
• How would you respond to interpersonal conflict with a coworker or manager?
• Can you tell me about a time when you encountered a complex problem and how you responded?

Accelerate Your Hiring

Hard skills and soft skills are both essential in the workplace. Evaluating candidates using both will help you make the best decision for your company. Visit iHire’s Resource Center to learn more about hiring qualified talent.