Here's how you can assess a candidate's soft skills during the recruiting process.

Situational judgment tests and role-playing scenarios can be valuable tools. These methods place candidates in hypothetical situations relevant to the job and assess their responses, providing a practical demonstration of their problem-solving, adaptability, and decision-making abilities. Observing how candidates listen, maintain eye contact, and express themselves can give clues about their interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence.

Assess a candidate's soft skills during the recruiting process by using behavioral interview questions, observing their communication style, conducting role-playing scenarios, seeking feedback from group interactions, and evaluating their problem-solving abilities.

Evaluating soft skills is key to finding the perfect candidate. Define the essential soft skills for the role. During interviews, use behavioral questions and assess communication. Present scenarios to gauge decision-making. Consider skills assessments and team interviews. Finally, create a positive environment and standardize the process for all candidates.

I don't lean on behavioral questions to assess soft skills. They have their place, but I prefer to start with a simple "Tell me about you" and see where they take it. Do they start with their current job? Or at the beginning of their resume? Or further back by referencing where they grew up and what led them to their professional career? I listen to how they frame their story and how open they are to sharing information.

When you only have 60mins or so of time with a candidate before making a decision that could be years-long commitment, it is crucial to use the time to really get to the heart of what makes the person suitable for the role. Without being there, you rely on the anecdotal stories of past experiences and this is where we want to find out thought process, how they view the situation & navigate it. As they say, past behaviours are a window into future behaviour but also an opportunity for candidates to showcase what they have learnt if outcome did not go as planned - this in turn gives a glimpse to their EQ which is important in highly agile environments.

Create scenarios relevant to the job role and observe how candidates respond. This can simulate real-life situations they might encounter, revealing their communication, empathy, and decision-making skills.

Role plays are a great way to assess soft skills. I prefer them over canned behavioral-based questions because they create more realistic scenarios rather than a candidate offering an answer they assume I want to hear.

Contact references to inquire about the candidate’s soft skills in previous roles. References can provide valuable insights into their work ethic, interpersonal skills, and ability to collaborate effectively.

Use assessments or exercises designed to measure social intelligence, including emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. These tests can provide quantitative insights into how candidates perceive and manage emotions and relationships.

Follow up questions which require "real time" examples are my favorite way to truly dig into a candidate's technical skill set. Providing a real time example provides us with the ability to assess and is typically more comfortable for a candidate to showcase their expertise. It also provides a great example of the ability to articulate and communicate their abilities vs. what has been written on their resume.

This is an underrated part of the process but a great opportunity to gain further insight on a candidate. Leading into interviews it can be a highly nervous situation leading to candidates being anxious and hence using rehearsed answers to typical interview questions to aide them. But once the high pressure of the interview is over, this is when candidates bring down their barriers and could lead to more genuine and open honest conversations about the role and space for them to reflect if it is something that aligns with them personally.

If you've budget for it, consider implementing a paid trial day or even a week, allowing the candidate to collaborate on hands-on tasks and work with the team. This period of time is incomparable source of information about the candidate. You can assess their working style, communication, proactiveness, thinking-process, and more which can be perceived differently during the regular interview phase.