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How to Hire for Soft Skills

It’s important to hire workers for their expertise, but it’s always critical to remember hiring for soft skills, as well.
Because many people can learn cloud computing or C++ programming skills, but it’s harder to teach some employees the soft people skills that make workers more productive.

If your software development company wants to hire people with better soft skills, below is some important information to digest.

Outline

Why Are Soft Skills Required In Tech?

How Do We Manage Hard And Soft Skills To Create The Best Work Teams?

How To Measure Soft Skills – Observation And Analysis

How To Interview For Soft Skills

What Soft Skills Are Ideal In Technology Jobs?

Why Are Soft Skills Required In Tech?

It’s a stereotype that technology careers only require IT and technical expertise. But the most productive and successful tech teams also have well-developed soft skills.

Soft skills may give you a serious edge when applying for a job. For instance, the job interview will help the interviewer to gauge your soft skills. These are the skills necessitating excellent communication, critical thinking under pressure, stress management, and persuasion. The best IT employees have excellent hard and soft skills.

Soft skills in tech also are a big deal because being good with them also allows you to use your technical skills better. People who are good with others can motivate them and get everyone pulling in the same direction. Time and organizational management skills also are essential in a busy IT office and will help you get more done in less time.

How Do We Manage Hard And Soft Skills To Create The Best Work Teams?

Research suggests that 55% of companies think they have skill gaps in their organizations that affect performance.
Research suggests that 55% of companies think they have skill gaps in their organizations that affect performance.
Many organizations use an assortment of skill assessment tools to get a feel for a person’s hard and soft skills.
Further, about 80% of businesses use some kind of skill assessment during the hiring process.

Ensuring that your team has the programming and IT skills needed to complete an assignment is a big deal. But it also matters to have folks with soft skills who are more often project managers and facilitators.

How To Measure Soft Skills – Observation And Analysis

Soft skills are one of the hardest to notice and track in a technical team. An assessment and performance review may be needed to find out if the vital soft skills are there enough to meet all team needs.

One way to track a leader’s soft skills is to see how often their projects are on deadline. See how on time people under the leader are to work and to meetings. You even can talk to employees in the team and find out how pleased and engaged they are.

How To Interview For Soft Skills

Before the interview, you and your team should devise questions that probe the person’s soft skills. This interview style can be an effective way to gauge the interviewee’s soft skills:
  • Scenario: Talk about a situation that was really challenging in your last IT job with other team members and how you handled it.
  • Task: Talk about how you were involved in solving the matter and how you felt about it.
  • Action: Detail your original response and which actions solved the issues. Did you bring in others to help?
  • Result: Talk about how the situation concluded. What kind of behaviors did you see in others as they reacted to your solutions? Can you show any stats that show how you handled the issue made for a better project and work experience.

If you interview in this fashion, you’ll get outside of yes and no answers, which allows you to really test and get to know the potential hire.

What Soft Skills Are Ideal In Technology Jobs?

The most talented IT professionals use technical and soft skills every day. But some of them could be more valuable in your citation than others.

Curious

Many technology professionals possess a natural curiosity about the way things operate. This soft skill will keep you asking questions, probing, innovating and creating along the way. Companies like curiosity because it keeps workers and products moving forward in a state of steady improvement.

Analytical Thinker

People who have a high degree of skill with analytical thinking can pinpoint and solve complex problems with a logical methodology. IT professionals who are analyzers can see trends, performance indicators, outliers, and the most important events.

Many employers put a high value on analytical thinking because this skill conserves time and money.

Detail oriented

If you are successful in the IT field, you probably are detail-oriented. After all, programming a piece of software for a computer or app requires a lot of concentration and precision. Detail-focused IT workers are careful and check every detail before moving forward.

Remember, technical companies need to trust their workers with complicated technical tasks and they want to know that no detail will be missed.

Easily Adapts

If you’re adaptable on the job, you can adjust your work to changes on the job. Being adaptable in terms of a soft skill means being comfortable with new technologies and skills. You also can handle adjustments in the order and execution of regular tasks. When challenges come up, you can adapt fast and succeed.

Being adaptable is especially helpful in large project teams. There could be an important software project that needs better programming chops. They want you to leave your old project team where you’re less needed. Being able to dive into a new team with new deliverables, and maybe using a new programming language, is what being adaptable means.

Good Decision-Maker

Robust decision-making skills lets tech professionals think about various variables and make difficult decisions.
This skill can save your company and team a lot of time and conflict. Good decision-making skills also may enhance productivity and increase excellent results.
If you do things like asking thoughtful interview questions when hiring technical people, it’s possible to get an accurate read on their soft skills.
As you are evaluating each interviewee, look for all of the traits above.
If you do these things, you’ll probably get more people in the office with the soft skills you want.

Are you looking for the right recruiting agency to help you scale your employee headcount? If so, we can help.

Picture of Ryan Nead

Ryan Nead

Ryan has served in the Staffing and Recruiting industry for over 10 years. As an independent recruiter and business owner Ryan partners with decision-makers to attract, hire, and attain top-tier professionals to succeed and grow their companies. Ryan consistently implements new tools to help the needs of both clients and candidates until they are satisfied. With years of direct experience and knowledge from scaling and disrupting other major global industries. If you don't see Ryan with his family he is hard at work finding the right fit for your organization's open roles.

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