5 Best Way to Assess a Candidate’s Soft Skills

Soft skills are very essential in the world of work. Employees who have strong soft skills will find it easier to interact and build teamwork with team members. This will make the work produced will be much more productive and of high quality. That’s why recruiters and hiring managers need to know the best way to assess a candidate’s soft skills before hiring them.

Unfortunately, recruiting candidates with qualified soft skills is tough. Many old methods are no longer effective, you have to use the right method to assess it so it doesn’t end up bad hiring.

Then, how do you assess a candidate’s soft skills? What is the best method you can do? Well, for those of you who want to know, in this article Algobash will provide information on the best way to assess a candidate’s soft skills.

If you’re curious about the full details, brew your coffee and read the review below!

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Why do Soft Skills Matter?

Soft skills are skills related to one’s personality such as the ability to socialize, communicate, cooperate, problem-solving, make decisions, time management, and much more. In the workplace, soft skills are very important for employees, this is because soft skills can increase their productivity.

Based on a report published by Linkedin’s Global Talent 2019, 92% of talent acquisitions said that soft skills are as important as hard skills. Even in certain situations they can be considered more important. In addition, the report also states that 89% of new employees do not work optimally due to a lack of soft skills.

Soft skills can greatly affect the your company development. If employees have strong soft skills, this will make it easier for them to collaborate and improve team performance. So the company will have a more positive work culture.

Read full also: What Is Social Media Recruitment and Why Does It Matter?

What’s the Best Way to Assess a Candidate’s Soft Skills?

If hard skills are easy enough to test, soft skills are just the opposite. Even 60% of recruiters consider soft skill assessment of candidates very difficult to do.

But actually, there are still several ways you can assess a candidate’s soft skills correctly and effectively. Then, what are the best ways to assess a candidate’s soft skills? To answer this question, here are some ways you should do:

The Best Ways to Assess a Candidate’s Soft Skills

1. Ask Candidates to Develop Soft Skills That Can Lead Them to Success

If you want to do a soft skills assessment during an interview, try to ask the candidate to develop what soft skills are needed to make them successful at work.

The top soft skills they mentioned will help them to complete the job later. However, if they don’t know what soft skills are important to them, then this can become a red flag.

2. Ask Candidates to Rank Their Soft Skills

In addition to asking candidates to develop any soft skills that can help them to succeed. You can also ask candidates to rank their soft skills, from most mastered to least.

Pay attention to what they mention, whether there are soft skills that they master that match the job position they are applying for or not.

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3. Challenge Candidates To Solve A Problem

When conducting an interview, to assess soft skills rather than asking a “what” question it will be more effective if you ask a “how” question.

For example, when you ask “Do you have good time management skills?” most candidates will say yes. They will convince you that they have it even though they don’t.

It’s different if you ask a question that requires problem-solving skills such as “How do you complete two different tasks but must be completed at the same time?” or “How do you deal with nervousness or discomfort when working with new people you haven’t met before?”

These questions will show the candidate’s soft skills from the answers to how they solve a problem. However, if you want to give this challenge to a candidate, make sure that the question is relevant to the work situation of the company or the position they are applying for.

4. Give an Assessment to Test Candidate Soft Skills

You can also test soft skills through assessment. Currently, many platforms provide online soft skills assessment services, you can use one of these platforms to test candidates. Make sure that the test kit you use is following the company or job position the candidate is applying for.

One of the best platform that you can use is Algobash; a pre-employment test tool that can help you assess hard skills and soft skills. Through Algobash you can assess how a candidate’s cognitive abilities are.

Cognitive ability is very important for a candidate to have in various job positions. These are key skills that can help candidates to develop as employees such as problem-solving, thinking and remembering processes and decision making.

5. Give Candidates a Short Project to Work With a Team In Your Company

If possible you can challenge the candidate to work with the company team in the position they are applying for.

This is one of the most effective ways to see the extent of the soft skills a candidate has. This method has been widely used by several large companies such as Toyota. They ask candidates to work directly with the team for a certain period after carrying out the interview process.

This method will be very effective because candidates are asked to work directly with their future team. You can do this test simply by creating a remote project with a team.

To run effectively and not burden the candidate, you can carry out this test by giving a fee to all candidates who take it.

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So, those are some of the best ways to assess a candidate’s soft skills. Let’s try to adopt one of the ways that you think is most relevant to be applied in your company’s recruitment process. If you are interested in more information, don’t forget to visit our blog Algobash Insight to find interesting articles about industry insights and talent development.