How to Evaluate Hard and Soft Skills When Hiring
Table of contents
Introduction
When you're hiring a new employee, it's important to find someone who has the right skill set for the job. But what exactly does that mean? Hiring for hard skills means hiring someone who already has a specific knowledge, like how to use certain software or how to perform certain tasks. Hiring for soft skills means hiring someone who will be able to learn those same things quickly and easily—and then use them effectively with minimal supervision. So while hard skills are teachable and can be learned in an interview setting, soft skills are personality traits such as confidence and communication ability that are more difficult (though not impossible) to evaluate during an interview process. In this post, you will find how you can assess both types of skills during your next hiring round.
Hard skills are technical and teachable
Hard skills are the ones that are specific and teachable. They're often technical — like programming languages or business-specific skills, like sales techniques — but they don't always have to be. For example, a data analyst who can apply predictive analysis tools to a company's sales data to help predict customer behavior is demonstrating hard skills.
Hard skills are usually learned through training or experience, so if you're hiring someone with hard skills, you'll want to make sure they can get up to speed quickly on your systems and processes.
Hard skills are usually measurable: when you ask an applicant for their job title, their years of experience, and their last salary before moving on from your company (if applicable), those numbers provide some evidence that the person has acquired these specific abilities.
Soft skills are personality traits and social interaction
Soft skills are personality traits and social interaction. They're important because they're learnable, but not everyone can be good at them. Like hard skills, soft skills can be learned through training and practice, but it's harder to teach someone how to improve on their personality traits or how to handle a conflict in the workplace.
Soft skills include communication, leadership, problem-solving, and flexibility (the ability to move from one task or job role to another). People with strong soft skills tend to work well on teams because they know how to support their colleagues or help them succeed by working together toward a common goal—which is why managers often look for these qualities when hiring new employees.
Hiring the right person requires you to evaluate both soft and hard skills
When hiring the right person, it’s important to evaluate both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are technical competencies that can be taught, such as coding or graphic design. Soft skills are personality traits and social interaction—qualities that can be learned but aren’t necessarily learned in the same way as technical skills.
Most companies ask their candidates to complete standard interviews during which they evaluate the candidate's abilities with hard skills like software development or data analysis, but at some point in your hiring process, you should also evaluate whether they would fit into your company culture by evaluating their soft skills through behavioral interviewing techniques.
Evaluate hard skills through standard interviews, and soft skills during behavioral interviews
When evaluating the hard skills of your job candidates, you will want to conduct standard interviews and observe them in action. This means asking questions that can be answered with a yes or no, such as:
- Can they perform basic math?
- Were they able to complete their previous project on time?
- Do they manage their time well?
You can also ask situational questions, which require some thought and explanation. For example: “Tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult co-worker or customer. How did you handle the situation and what was the outcome?”
Look for examples of how candidates used their hard and soft skills in different situations
When hiring, look for examples of how candidates used their hard and soft skills in different situations. Ask open-ended questions that encourage candidates to elaborate on their experiences. For example, you might ask a candidate if they've ever had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with and what they did about it. Or ask the candidate if they have any examples of times when they were able to motivate others or communicate effectively with people outside of their department.
It's also important that you look for examples of how candidates used their soft skills in different situations. For example, let's say you're interviewing someone for an administrative assistant position: ask them how they dealt with an irate customer over the phone or why they prefer email as opposed to text messaging when talking about business matters—these questions will help reveal more information about how well this person will fit into your office culture.
Ask open-ended questions that encourage candidates to elaborate on their experiences
When you're interviewing applicants, it's important to ask questions that encourage them to elaborate on their experiences. If you ask yes-or-no questions, your candidates won't have much room for elaboration. Instead, try asking open-ended questions about their experience and how they would handle future situations. For example:
- "Tell me about a time when you had an idea in your head but were unable to implement it because of a lack of resources or resources were mismanaged."
- "How would you apply the skills from one project with another project if both projects required those same skills?"
- "Describe the best way for me to reach out if I need help with [something]."
There are other ways you can evaluate soft skills, including assessments and personality tests
There are other ways you can evaluate soft skills, including assessments and personality tests. Assessments are designed to measure the degree to which a candidate possesses a particular skill. For example, if you're hiring for an administrative assistant position and your ideal candidate has good organizational skills, you could use a low-stakes assessment to determine whether or not the candidates have that particular skill.
Personality tests can also be helpful in evaluating soft skills; they're often used as part of personality profiling tools. These tests measure someone's temperament based on their answers to questions about how they would behave in certain situations (e.g., "How would you react if your boss asked you to work overtime?"). If a candidate responds with statements like "I'd tell them where they can find the door," then it would be safe to say that this person may not be able to take direction well or follow instructions carefully—both critical components of performing well in an administrative assistant position!
It's important to take the time to look for the right soft and hard skills during the hiring process
You're not just looking for someone who is qualified. You need to find the right person for the job.
Whether you're hiring a freelancer or an employee, your choice will make or break your business. Hiring the wrong person can cost you a lot of money in terms of time and resources wasted on training them on their first day—not to mention how much more expensive it is if they don't work out long-term. On top of this, bringing on board unqualified employees can prevent your business from reaching its full potential because they won't be able to do the job they were hired to do effectively or efficiently enough for it not to be noticeable to customers.
On the other hand, bringing on board someone who possesses both hard and soft skills that fit what's needed for their role at work could save you money in several ways:
- They won't need as much training.
- They'll have a better understanding of the job and be able to work more efficiently.
- They'll be able to do more than one task at once without having to ask for help (which saves time).
Conclusion
It’s important to take the time to look for the right soft and hard skills during the hiring process. You can’t just hire someone because they have a skill or two that are relevant to your position. The candidate needs to also show that they know how to apply their knowledge in different situations and interact with other people effectively. Using this approach will help you hire better employees who will stay at your company longer because of their positive work relationships with others!