The best soft skills assessment to identify top talent

What is a soft skills assessment?

A soft skills assessment asks respondents questions that predict how they will react in real work situations.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are the non-technical abilities that influence the way we interact with others and approach problems. They're also known as people skills or interpersonal skills, and they're not easily quantifiable.

Examples of soft skills include interpersonal communication, empathy, listening, and conflict resolution.

Hard skills, by contrast, are technical skills directly related to a job, such as computer programming, physics, statistics, and product management. Hard skills are quantifiable and can easily be measured.

Why assess soft skills?

Because they affect your relationships, both professionally and personally. Soft skills are crucial to success. It doesn't matter how much technical knowledge you have if you lack effective communication skills and the ability to collaborate.

For instance, you could be a brilliant computer programmer, but if you lack the empathy to understand how the software you're building will affect the end user, the teamwork skills to collaborate with your development team members, and the interpersonal skills to understand what your project manager is asking of you, it'll be tough to succeed.

Assessing soft skills during the hiring process, therefore, is a crucial part of building a stronger team. It allows hiring managers to make better decisions during the interview process. It also allows people managers to understand the strengths and blind spots of each direct report so they can leverage strengths and grow in the areas that need improvement. Cognitive diversity among team members strengthens business outcomes. And who wouldn't want that?

‍

Common soft skills employers want to assess

• Problem-solving abilities
• Leadership ability
• Critical thinking
• Creative thinking
• Time management
• Conflict management
• Listening skills
• Stress management
• Logical reasoning
• Strategic thinking
• Communication skills

What are the benefits of soft skills assessments?

The benefits of soft skills assessments include making more informed hiring decisions, an increase in productivity and job performance, improving team dynamics and more engaged employees.

More informed hiring decisions

Because soft skills affect job performance, the use of pre-employment assessments is highly valued for its ability to help you make better decisions when it comes to hiring. According to research by SHRM, more than half of employers use assessments to gauge a candidate's skills. Further, 79% of them say that skills assessments are equally as important, or more important, than other hiring criteria.²

Higher employee productivity

When you know where each individual's strength lies, you can leverage that to place them in the right role and assign them the right tasks. And when you understand their blind spots, you can better target them with the right coaching and training to improve. In one University of Michigan study,³ workers who received soft skills training boosted productivity by 12%.

Improved job performance

Many research studies have shown that soft skills development changes employee behavior⁴ and improves the performance of employees. By performing a soft skills assessment test you can target blind spots with coaching and training to improve on-the-job performance. This is key to determining someone's long-term success!

Improved team dynamics

A soft skill measurement can also help you better manage your workforce for improved team dynamics. For example, if one team member has a reading learning style (meaning they need to read research papers and facts before making a decision), and another team member has a kinesthetic learning style (meaning they are convinced by rolling up their sleeves and trying something), you can use that to the team's advantage.

While those may seem like opposing traits, they affect stronger decision-making because they complement each other. Essentially, one person's blind spot is supported by the other person's strength. People managers who have these deep insights into candidates can optimize the situation so the team environment is healthier.

Read our guide on how to run a team dynamics workshop.

Greater employee engagement

Gallup's research into human behaviors and strengths, reveals that employees who use their strengths daily are 6 times more likely to be engaged at work. What's more, Gallup writes:

‘When employees know and use their strengths, they are more engaged, perform better, and are less likely to leave their company.’

Reduced staff turnover

Here's a real-world example of this: In her book HR Disrupted, Lucy Adams describes how reward consultancy organization NextJump improved its hiring process and the quality of its potential candidates.

By dedicating years to observing its top employees, the company was able to identify the number one quality that they all shared: humility. Knowing this, it designed a 45-minute interview to find out candidates' levels of humility. By doing so, staff turnover dropped drastically from 40% to 1%!

How to conduct a soft skills assessment in the workplace

Conduct pre-employment assessments

Adding a soft skill assessment to your hiring process is a wise way to ensure you're finding the best candidate for each position. Before investing time and resources into interviewing someone who wouldn't be a great fit for the role, you can send a link to the assessment as a screening tool.

Have current employees use a soft skill assessment tool

But a soft skills test isn't just for job candidates, it's for current employees too! Remember, these assessments aren't for punishing people who get the ‘wrong’ results. Rather, they're essential tools for finding out ways you can boost employee engagement by aligning their strengths with their tasks.

You can also ensure they feel a sense of belonging and competence on their team, as you'll be able to leverage their strengths on projects and in groups.

That's exactly how tech unicorn and graphic design platform Canva uses F4S for its current employees. The results from the assessment drive more productive one-on-ones and growth and development conversations. Canva even uses the F4S platform to better serve its employees through internal coaching programs.

Ask behavioral interview questions

Yet another way to assess the soft skills of candidates is through behavioral interview questions. These questions seek to learn how someone acted in a situation in the past. For example, you might ask, ‘Tell me about a time when you were given a task, but you didn't have the resources to complete it.’ Or, ‘Describe a situation from your past where you were in conflict with someone at work. How did you resolve it?’ Their answers demonstrate the soft skills they have.

Observe how an employee responds to a situation in real-time

Of course, instead of asking someone to describe a situation you weren't there to witness, you could also observe a situation in real time. This is particularly useful for managers to see how teams interact.

5 most effective soft skills assessment tools and platforms

Fingerprint for Success (F4S)

F4S is more than just a soft skills measurement tool, it's an entire performance and collaboration platform. We offer a free assessment based on 20+ years of motivation research. From there, you can access a detailed report in your personalized dashboard, along with recommendations and deeper insight to help you grow in the areas you want to improve on. F4S also offers AI-powered coaching programs through Coach Marlee.

Price: F4S has a free forever plan that grants you access to our evidence-based soft skills assessment and one AI coaching program. Access to more features, such as unlimited AI coaching, on the Team plan starts at US$11.99/user/month (billed annually)

When to use: F4S is useful across the entire employee lifecycle. This includes the recruitment process, hiring, onboarding, employee retention, new team formation, and conflict resolution.