Today’s competitive job market relies more on conducting a soft skills assessment with each candidate entering the workplace. The challenge with this portion of the hiring process is that it can turn into a subjective activity for recruitment and HR that can initiate bias and cause higher turnover. Hence, standardizing these assessments and relying on data alone can enhance hiring decisions to decrease turnover. Let’s evaluate the importance of a soft skills assessment and how hiring analytics makes them more effective.
What Is a Soft Skills Assessment?
A soft skills assessment is a test a candidate takes for an employer to learn interpersonal attributes and personality traits this individual has to communicate and adapt in the company. Essentially, these skills are more based on emotional values than technical skills. Positive communication and interaction with co-workers and customers even through conflicts is essential for smooth business operations.
LinkedIn reported that the soft skills assessment software industry was valued at $839.69 million in 2022. The industry is expected to expand with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.77% per year. Hence, the soft skills assessment software industry will reach a potential value of $1175.93 million once it hits 2031.
Methods of Assessment
Understanding the methods utilized for soft skills assessment can help employers effectively analyze if candidates will be sustainable for the organization. Behavioral interviews, self-assessments, and other methods can unveil how individuals can overcome workplace challenges and their interpersonal relationships with co-workers.
Behavioral Interviews
Behavioral interviews evaluate how candidates have acted in the past so interviewers can predict their future behavior if they were onboarded with the company. Some questions that may be involved in behavioral interviews include:
“Can you tell me about an instance when you resolved a conflict with a co-worker?”
“How did you adapt to a new change at one of your past workplaces?”
This assessment method gives employers insights into how candidates handled real-world situations before and how they may react to them while with your company. Behavioral interviews can uncover the thought processes, emotional responses, and candidate values for an overall snapshot of the effectiveness of their soft skills.
Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs)
SJTs give candidates a what-if scenario of something that could happen in their workplace. The candidate must effectively answer the scenario with an adequate portrayal of their emotional response.
These scenarios could be dealing with a difficult client or their tactics for collaborating on a team in their potential department. These interview questions evaluate critical thinking, conflict resolution, and problem-solving abilities.
Self-Assessments
Self-assessments are great for seeing how a candidate thinks of their soft skills. They can complete a survey where they rate various soft skill competencies on a scale of 1 to 10 such as communication, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, adaptability, etc.
360-Degree Feedback
A 360-degree feedback soft skills assessment gathers a profile of a candidate’s emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills from multiple sources. It melds a self-assessment with peer reviews, manager assessments, and subordinate feedback to give a full picture of how a candidate sees themselves and how co-workers view them in a professional environment.
This feedback method is best for a 90-day candidate evaluation rather than the initial interview process. However, if you prefer to utilize this during onboarding, you can call the candidate’s prior workplaces to gather this information.
Group Assessments
Putting new hires together in a collaborative group assessment is an innovative and engaging way to conduct soft skills assessments for them all at once. They can discuss topics relevant to the company to learn more about it and its client base. The new hires can also engage in role-playing exercises to get to know more about possible workplace challenges and icebreaker activities to evaluate their communication and social skills.
The Importance Of a Robust Soft Skills Assessment
Soft skill assessment evaluates interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence that directly impact workplace culture. Deciphering a candidate’s ability to adapt, collaborate, and communicate leads to an organization achieving a more cohesive team environment.
A robust skills assessment gives a well-rounded snapshot of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s also useful for predicting hiring metrics. Hence, employers can make the best hiring decisions with this foresight that aligns with their organizational goals accordingly. Hence, this tactic refines employee retention and enforces high-performance metrics. Assessing candidate skills early during recruitment decreases turnover while stabilizing the company’s workforce.
Informed Hiring Decisions
While it’s essential to evaluate a candidate’s hard skills (i.e. technical ability, writing prowess, and language proficiency), soft skills should also be assessed to ensure the best candidate is selected. Evaluating both sets of skills can refine the candidate selection with the best fit for the role. This ensures that the applicant simultaneously meets technical requirements and company culture needs. Hence, taking this approach decreases the likelihood of bad hires and enhances the onboarding process’s effectiveness.
Personal Development
Soft skills assessments are vital for personal development initiatives in the workplace. Discovering a candidate’s strengths in interpersonal skills, communication ability, and how they excel in the workplace can refine training and development programs tailored to their needs. This inhibits continued learning and growth in one’s career development which translates to enhanced contribution to the organization as they refine their workplace capabilities.
Enhanced Team Dynamics
Standardizing soft skills assessment tests helps to understand what strengths team members share in common. Putting individuals on a team who have different skill sets can innovate problem-solving to increase the chances of project success. Hence, these enhanced team dynamics will lead to better productivity and refined job satisfaction.
Alignment With Organizational Goals
Ultimately, prioritizing employee soft skills helps the team to align with organizational goals. Identifying candidates who have the appropriate skills to grow with the company will enhance an adaptable and forward-thinking workforce. Hence, this tactic helps to fulfill strategic initiatives while navigating innovations and changes more effectively. This enhances overall success in achieving long-term and short-term goals by encouraging sustainability within a competitive industry landscape.
Utilizing Hiring Analytics for Effective Assessment
Evaluating analytics in hiring can significantly enhance accuracy and efficiency when conducting soft skills assessments during onboarding. This will enable the organization to make data-driven hiring decisions while finding applicants that best fit the company culture.
Identifying Key Soft Skills
Hiring analytics allows recruitment to pinpoint the key soft skills relevant to candidate success. Evaluating current employees’ performance data can help recruitment to understand which interpersonal attributes are best for future candidates to succeed in the company. These traits will contribute the most to collaborative efforts and maintaining productivity in the workplace. This targeted approach will focus on the best soft skills directly impacting team dynamics to make better hiring decisions.
Standardizing Assessment Tools
Again, standardization is an important process to make recruitment fair to everyone. Asking the same questions is a soft skills assessment, whether a self-assessment or an SJT, employers can gain better insights on which candidates fit best into open roles. Relying on data only without subjective bias ensures onboarding the best hires and reducing turnover rates.
Data-Driven Candidate Evaluation
Utilizing hiring analytics ensures an objective data-driven candidate evaluation. Data collected from the soft skills assessment, resume review, and interview feedback can highlight a candidate’s best abilities more accurately. This also helps recruiters identify patterns in what traits are best suited for the ideal candidate profile.
