Rejection! That’s the word which scares us a lot. In our life, we have to achieve big dreams and those are not possible without an interview. On the steps of an interview, we have to take care of many things like our dress-up, confidence and soft skills, technical knowledge etc.
Being an expert in technical field won’t get you a job until you don’t have a strong grip on soft skills. The way you speak, the way you express your knowledge has a proper method to draw it in success. Don’t worry, here we are solving this issue for you by sharing some important facts to improve soft skills. But before that, you must look at these soft skills interview questions and understand the importance of soft skills
What are Soft Skills?
Before taking an interview as an interviewer or preparing for the interview as a candidate, it is essential for you to comprehend the basic soft skills meaning. Just like other vital skills, even soft skills are important for a job.
Conventionally only specific jobs require these skills, but at present almost every type of job requires the employees to possess such skills. These skills are behavioral competencies that are associated with an individual’s emotional intelligence quotient. These skills help employees to interact with others and influence them. The others can be customers, team mates, suppliers or anyone belonging to the management.
Some major soft skills that a person must possess are team work, conflict resolution, effective communication, strategic thinking and negotiation. Besides these, there are other types of soft skills that a person must possess like loyalty, optimism, good manners, diligence, ability to interact with others, and more.
Importance of Soft Skills:
Soft skills are imperative for any role and especially in those that require a high level of interaction or collaboration with others. If you are opting for a job that requires you to communicate with your clients, co-workers or subordinates on regular basis, then you must possess high levels of soft skills.
As an interviewer, you can easily judge a candidate’s technical skills through aptitude tests, qualifications and experience. But if you wish to interrogate your candidate for his soft skills, then here are a set of questions that you may ask. It is because asking the right questions can help you judge the candidate’s soft skills and ensure that he is the best fit to your organization.
Interview Questions to Ask to Assess Soft Skills:
Few sets of soft skill interview questions to assess the candidate’s soft skills are mentioned below. You can always frame the questions as per your organization’s requirement, but make sure that the basis for such questions remains intact.
1. Interpersonal questions:
You can always ask the candidate about any past difficult experience he might have had with his manager. Asking the candidate about ways he handled the situation can let you know about his managerial potentials.
Other than this, you can always ask the candidate about situations that he have handled when other high ranking employees disagreed with his opinions. You can always judge a candidate’s interpersonal skills by asking him about his work experience with employees of different behaviors.
2. Oral interaction:
Communication forms an integral component of the soft skills. So to make out that how well the candidate can utilize his communication skills under varying circumstances, you may ask him about situations when he uses his communication skills to make a difference.
You can always interrogate for situations when the candidate wins over others with the help of his communication. If you want to be more judgmental, then you can ask about your candidate’s experiences when he used his communication approach based on variations in situations.
3. Problem solving:
It is another vital component of the soft skills that you must judge out in the candidate that you are seeking forward to add to your professional team. Some set of direct questions for testing the problem solving efficiency of the candidate are ask him to give you an example of big problem at work and all the steps he took to resolve it. Or you may ask him to give an example of a situation when he is able to solve a complex task at work without undertaking anyone’s help.
Another way is to ask the candidate to describe a situation when his problem solving efficiency was tested at regular intervals. You can also ask for problems being faced and solved by the employer at his current company and how he figured it out and resolved it.
4. Teamwork:
The last and still very essential element of soft skills in the workplace is the teamwork. Asking the candidate about a situation when he had a difficulty working with the team or about a time when he has to seek help from his co-worker to solve a problem can let you know about the team spirit of a candidate.
You can always ask for instances when the interviewee has to work in a team to solve a complex problem or when the interviewee along with the team is not able to meet the team goals.
Ways to Inculcate Soft Skills:
Now while these are the soft skills assessment questionnaire that the interviewer may ask you to assess your soft skills, it is also essential that you prepare well and try inculcating such skills within you. Here are some potential ways that you may follow to get the right way for proper soft skills:-
1. Office welcome:
The very first part when you step-in the office and there you see a panel of 3-4 people are ready to hit you with questions. The first thing before entering is you should ask “may I come in?” that sentence shows your manners and your confidence as well.
The tip in this is keep you voice bit loud and clear. Now walk in the office confidently. Do not try to sit without permission, wait till they offer you a seat. A confident face is the key to impress the panel.
2. Wishing the Panel:
You should wish the panel like “hello sir/ma’am, good Morning” or whatever suits that time. Always keep in mind that first impression is the last impression. Your voice should be soft toned for the wishing.
3. Introduce yourself:
A very common question any interviewer will ask you “tell me something about yourself”. So don’t think it is a boring question but this is the great opportunity for you to take control over the interview. Here what you should do is take a deep breath and start introducing yourself.
The introduction should cover your resume mainly your study, skill and your hobbies. Never make it too long, focus on the main part, do not tell a life story and most important keep it within the resume words.
4. Previous job history:
Now without wasting the time, panel will directly come to the point and ask you about your last job. Here you can face many questions like
A. Why you left that job?
For this question, give the appropriate answer. Do not make a fake line to impress the panel because you can be caught later. Here you can also praise about their company that you were waiting to join here and getting the experience till that time.
B. What was your role in that company?
Speak As per your resume words. What you have written there in the experience part. The interviewer always cross checks your answers and matches them with your written words. Do not tell a story here, also keep it in short and always speak the main parts. Describe your designation, your role and what kind of work you did there.
5. Give me an example of a worst situation at work and how you handled it:
Yes now, these types of questions are thrown just to check your soft skills mainly. Here you have a good chance to speak. Keep your words clear and your sentences smart that one should understand it properly. No need to fake a story here, you might be had ever faced situation in your life or last job do share that exactly. Be confident while sharing the answer.
6. How would you manage the work pressure?
When there is a job, work pressure comes free with it. Everyone gets irritated in this situation. You need to tell them your own way to handle such situation. Like you can say’ yes sometimes work pressure gets very high, I use to keep calm in such situation and keep on working. I can also spread the positivity around my team to stay calm’.
7. How skillful are you? Give an example to compare with others:
Yes, I know this is a panic one but it is most common question by interviewer. Give your 100% here, tell the exact skills to him and also explain them a bit more. After telling your skills to share a chance that you got to solve the issue when your team was stuck in some problem.
Do not show yourself a hero, just simply tell them what you did. In case you start blurring about yourself, the team will catch you with some hard technical question and this can lead you to “congratulations! You lost this Job”.
8. Describe how will you develop the relations with new employees:
In this part they check you how you handle the new persons. You need to tell the soften part of yourself. Here you say ‘I’m very good in this. I will take my new employee seriously.
It will tell them about the whole team, the environment, working schedule and rest of the things as well. I will not let their confidence down. Giving them positivity to work and confidence will be my duty.’ Such sentences can raise your image in interviewer’s eyes.
9. What are your long term and short term goals:
A must question of an interview is about goals. You have to reply here with two types of goals. In short term goals you can say “ my life’s short term goal is to get settled in my life with a good job in a repudiated company” and in long term goal section you can say that “my long term goal is to take my current position to higher and higher levels to achieve my dreams.” You can also use your own goals here but keep them short in telling.
Soft Skills Interview Questions for Freshers:
All the above set of soft skills questions is adequate to ask when you are interviewing an experienced candidate. But what set of questions will you ask for when you are hiring a fresher and don’t want to make a mistake when it is about judging his soft skills.
Surely a fresher will not possess any experience or knowledge about team work, but qualities and questions about which you can interrogate the candidate are self-confidence, time management and communication skills.
1. Self-confidence:
It is essential for a fresher to believe in himself and hence he must possess this skill. So check for candidates who are self-confident and trust their own skills and abilities. For this you may ask him about situations when they have confidently resolved a conflict or a problematic situation during their qualifying duration.
2. Communication skills:
Communication skills are extremely vital in today’s world and the candidate must possess high level of communication skills so that he can very well be understood and understand the workplace. Effective communication skills promote harmonious relationships in the workplace.
3. Time management:
It implies that the fresher candidate must have the potential to define priorities. He must be able to prioritize things and ensure that important works finish first. For this, you may ask about the ways the candidate prioritizes things during his schooling time.
Just like a candidate, even you as an interviewer might face difficulties in interviewing a candidate. But asking precise questions and effectively communicating with the candidate can help you know about the actual status of his soft skills.
