What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills refer to interpersonal attributes, personality traits, inherent social cues, and communication abilities needed for success on the job. They encompass a wide range of skills that facilitates human interactions, enhances productivity, and efficiently adapts to the environment within a workplace. While technical abilities and hard skills are important for executing specific tasks, soft skills play a crucial role in enhancing team performance, driving innovation, and fostering a positive workplace culture.

These skills, which include analytical thinking, innovation, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance, flexibility, and complex problem-solving, are seen as essential for navigating the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the changing nature of work.

Examples of soft skills.

• Communication skills: people who demonstrate both verbal and non-verbal communication abilities by being able to pay attention and actively understand information shared by others. This helps them convey information to others effectively and efficiently.
• "• Interpersonal skills: this is the capacity to accommodate others during engagements, such as having empathy, understanding what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, and collaborating with them effectively to achieve a common goal.
• Organizational skills: this is the ability to manage one’s own time and resources. It includes being time-conscious and effectively completing tasks and meeting deadlines. This helps achieve the overall goal since there is cohesion at work.
• Problem-solving skills and critical thinking: which is the ability to analyze information and come up with the best action plan, short-term, or long-term solutions.
• Leadership skills is the ability to motivate, inspire, and encourage others to achieve great things.

The Importance of considering Soft Skills in the Hiring Process

Considering soft skills in the hiring process is increasingly recognized as crucial for long-term organizational success. In a world where technical competencies can be relatively equal among candidates, soft skills often make the difference in how effectively an individual will perform in a team, adapt to changes, and contribute to a positive work environment. Here are several reasons why soft skills are vital in the hiring process:

1. Predicting job performance

Soft skills such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving are strong indicators of a candidate's potential job performance. These skills enable individuals to navigate workplace challenges, collaborate effectively with colleagues, and contribute to projects and tasks beyond the basic requirements of their role. Therefore, as a recruiter, incorporating this skills in your assessment processes, comes in handy in predicting a candidate’s job performance.

2. Fostering a collaborative work environment

The ability to work well with others is essential in most workplace settings. Candidates with strong interpersonal skills can enhance team collaboration, leading to higher productivity and innovation. These individuals’ help foster a supportive and inclusive work culture, which is crucial for retaining talent. Attracting and retaining talent that creates a collaborative work environment should a top-priority for recruiters.

3. Reducing turnover rates

When hiring for a position, many employers look for signs that a candidate may stay with their company long-term. The potential for longevity is important to employers because they will likely spend fewer resources on hiring a replacement.

Therefore, hiring individuals with compatible soft skills and aligned to organizational hiring needs can lead to higher job satisfaction and engagement, reducing turnover rates. Employees who fit well within the team and company culture are more likely to stay with the company long-term, saving costs related to hiring and training new employees.

4. Promoting Company Culture and Values

Candidates who align with a company's culture and values are more likely to contribute positively to the workplace environment. Considering soft skills in the hiring process helps identify individuals who will embrace and enhance the company's mission, promoting a unified and value-driven work environment.

5. They complement expertise

Soft skills complement technical expertise, leading to better job performance. For example, effective communication skills can ensure clear instructions and reduce errors in the chain of communication which increases overall efficiency.

6. Increased team collaboration

Today’s work spaces are more collaborative and teamwork is crucial. Therefore, having a team of individuals who can work harmoniously with colleagues despite the varying perspectives is key for overall success. Furthermore, soft skills improve team collaboration activities since people have self-awareness, empathy, and conflict resolution skills which are crucial for working effectively with others.

7. Client and customer satisfaction

 Candidates with strong interpersonal skills can enhance customer satisfaction, build long-term relationships, and contribute to business growth. With human capital being core for any business growth, having a team of employee who foster soft skills such as empathy, communication, and relationship building is essential when interacting with clients or customers

8. Adaptability and resilience

In today's fast-paced work environments, adaptability and resilience are vital. Candidates with these soft skills can navigate change more effectively, learn new technologies or processes quickly, and contribute to organizational agility. With the changing business climate, teams need skills to handle unexpected challenges, which contributes to making an organization competitive.

Assessing Soft Skills

Identifying and assessing soft skills is not always straightforward process. This includes finding candidates who not only have the right technical qualifications but also possess the interpersonal and behavioral traits necessary for success in the role and within the company culture.

Therefore, how do you get a glimpse into behavioral and interpersonal abilities a candidate has?

 To effectively assess soft skills, employers can use a variety of techniques, including online assessment tests, behavioral interview questions, personality assessments, and reference checks focused on interpersonal skills.

Career Bridge as your online candidate assessment partner.

Career Bridge as your online candidate assessment partner.

We work to simplify your hiring process by helping you administer personalized online assessments to up to 750 applicants globally at the same time in one day. You get access to over 2,000 tests ranging from technical, personality to soft skills tests. The tests are categorized into different roles such as white-collar, blue-collar, humanitarian, and technical roles.

You can administer the test in 9 different languages and can customize the tests based on your hiring needs. For example, you can request candidates to upload documents, their portfolios, or even present their responses in Excel, Word, or slides, which enables you to get a 360-degree view of the candidate’s skills.

Contact us at info@careerbridgejobs.com or call us at +254 788 065 400 for a demo and support on any questions you may have.