In Part 1, I wrote about hard skills vs. soft skills, and how business leaders, recruiters, and trainers are often not very good at recognizing, evaluating, and dealing with “soft skills.” These are the competencies or capabilities we use when we interact with other people. In this post, I am going to write about how we evaluate “soft skills.”

I mentioned that according to a survey on AOL the top 10 soft skills employers look for are:

1. Strong work ethic
2. Positive attitude
3. Good communication skills
4. Time management skills
5. Problem-solving skills
6. Team player
7. Self-confidence
8. Ability to accept and learn from criticism
9. Flexibility/adaptability
10. Working well under pressure

In our organization we use three techniques to help us evaluate soft skills – (1) Predictive Index (PI) assessments, (2) behavioral interviewing, and (3) work simulations. In Part 2 I’ll write about how you can use these three techniques to assess someone’s “soft skills.”

Predictive Index. The Predictive Index is a 10 minute on-line assessment developed by PI Worldwide, that gives us insight into many “soft skill” areas. It helps us determine if someone tends to be a (1) team performer or solo performer; (2) introvert or extrovert; (3) impatient or patient for results; and (4) detail-oriented or not. We have found these assessments extremely accurate especially when placing people into accounting and detailed professions or manager roles.

Behavioral Interviewing. Susannah Chance, an experienced human resource professional and colleague at Leddy Group, teaches organizations how to use “behavioral interviewing” as a second method of trying to understand one’s soft skills. Behavioral interviews ask questions that focus on someone’s past behaviors, which are the best predictor of their future behavior or performance. The questions are open-ended and allow the person to explore situations from their past. Let me give you a few behavioral question examples for the soft skills from the top-10 list above.

1. Work Ethic – Describe for us a time when you chose to go above and beyond your normal work hours to achieve a result and what the outcome was?

3. Good Communication Skills – Tell us about a time you had to “sell” an idea or solution to your supervisor or co-workers when you knew they weren't in favor of it to begin with? What happened?

7. Self-Confidence – Tell us about a time when you came up short on your performance, when you didn’t achieve your goal? How did you feel about it? What did you do next?

10. Working Well Under Pressure - Tell us about a situation when you were under a great deal of pressure because of numerous demands competing for your time and attention. How did you resolve the situation?

Behavioral Interview Exercise. In her article Use a Behavioral Interview to Select the Best Susan Heathfield wrote about these 13 soft skills desired for salespeople:

• Adaptable
• Articulate
• Accountable
• Perseverance
• Listener
• High energy
• Confident
• High integrity
• Self-directed
• Focused
• Effective networker
• Money hungry
• Enthusiastic

Try this exercise – Chose five of these soft skills and write a behavioral question for each.

Job Simulations. The third method you can use to evaluate someone’s skills is to put them into job-like situations or simulations and watch and listen to how they perform. For example, before we hire a salesperson or business developer, we ask them to make a “cold call” by phone or in person to a potential business customer of our company. By doing this we learn more about seven (7) soft skills of the person. We learn (1) how prepared the individual is because they should understand our company and services; (2) how enthusiastic they are when faced with new situations; (3) how adaptable they are; (4) how confident they are; (5) how articulate they are; (6) how well they ask questions; and (7) how well they listen.

One of my favorite reads of several years ago is the “Parables of Leadership” by by W. Chan Kim and Renée A. Mauborgne and published in Harvard Business Review. In this series of five parables the authors teach us important leadership lessons. In the parable called “The Sound of the Forest” a king sends his son, the prince, out into the forest to listen and then report back to the king what he “hears.” After being sent back to the forest several times the prince finally returns and says, “when I listened more closely, I could hear the unheard – the sound of the flowers opening, the sound of the sun warming the earth, and the sound of the grass drinking the morning dew.”

This is the ultimate “soft skill” for leaders – the ability to hear what is unspoken. How is your hearing?

Not too long ago I found myself standing in the office of a very successful owner of a mid-sized business. I was there with one of our company’s business developers. We were there to learn about his company’s hiring needs.

Our Company’s core competency is defined as helping businesses find and retain employees whose skills fit their needs. After a few nice “hellos”, my team member went right into the list of questions we ask employers. She completely missed all the wonderful family pictures on his bookshelves. She missed the “Business of the Year” plaque he received from his local Chamber of Commerce. She also missed a special picture of the gentleman volunteering at a regional Special Olympics event. So, what do you think was going through my mind between the point I noticed she missed all these things and when I was able to appropriately ask him about these pictures?

Yes, I wondered about her “soft skills.”

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills. Many business leaders, recruiters, and trainers are very good at recognizing, evaluating, and dealing with “hard skills” – these are the technical competencies of a person. Hard skills might include: ability to use certain software, ability to use tools, ability to repair equipment, or ability to use smart phones. There are many ways you can evaluate people for and train people in these skills.

However, business leaders, recruiters, and trainers are often not very good at recognizing, evaluating, and dealing with “soft skills” – these are people-interaction competencies or capabilities. An example of someone without soft skills can be found in the character Doc Martin, which is a show on public television and originates in Britain. Doc Martin is a small town doctor with no soft skills. He says what he thinks without regard for or understanding of anyone’s feelings. He is a character who is totally absent of soft skills and, thus, makes us squirm and laugh at the same time. I often think to myself, “I can’t imagine anyone thinking or saying that.”

Daniel Goleman refers to soft skills as our emotional intelligence (EI or EQ). He says you can put our soft skills into these four groups or categories:

1. Self-awareness – Authenticity, knowing strengths/weaknesses
2. Self-regulation – Self-control, adaptability, initiative, attitude
3. Social awareness – Empathy, organizational awareness, service
4. Relationship management – Inspiring, influential, develops others, change catalyst, conflict manager, team player

According to a survey on AOL the top 10 soft skills employers look for are:

1. Strong work ethic
2. Positive attitude
3. Good communication skills
4. Time management skills
5. Problem-solving skills
6. Team player
7. Self-confidence
8. Ability to accept and learn from criticism
9. Flexibility/adaptability
10. Working well under pressure

When I saw this list it resonated with me – yes, these are 10 soft skills I would like people working with me to have, especially business developers and leaders. So, how can we figure-out if a candidate has these skills or not?

In our organization, we use three techniques to help us evaluate soft skills – (1) Predictive Index (PI) assessments, (2) behavioral interviewing, and (3) work simulations.

In my next Blog post about this topic, I’ll write about how you can use these three techniques to assess someone’s “soft skills.”