Is Evaluation of Soft Skills Important to Drive a Recruitment Decision?

Most of us are acquainted with the concept of soft skills, right? Sometimes, interviewers look into the soft skills content primarily within the personality of an individual to recruit potential hires. Such skills are understood to be transferable, as candidates with a higher scoring in soft skills are known to contribute significantly within the workplace.

Soft skills, on the other hand, can be understood to be certain generic aspects embedded within your personality altogether! As per industry experts, a model to evaluate soft skills can be designed specifically within the organization to match business outcomes with respect to job roles concerned. Before we learn and focus on the evaluation part, let’s quickly take a look at the basic components of soft skills as understood by professional HR managers.

Integrated concept of soft skills would require better

• Communication
• Ability to play within a team
• Attitude towards Problem-solving
• Time management skills
• Ability for Critical thinking
• Decision-making approach
• Managing  oneself within Organizational framework
• Stress management abilities
• Adaptability to the surrounding environment
• Conflict management skills
• Leadership qualities
• Bent of mind towards creativity
• Resourcefulness of comprehension for the bigger picture

But, why do a majority of the HR managers feel that soft skills are important?

This is because more often than not soft skills relate to conflict management skills within the workplace.

However, contemporary HR consultants state that data visualization should be the foundation for evaluation of particular soft skills. A detailed interaction should be focused on, while expert consultants’ state that a preference towards certain basic skills can be focused to select the right prospect. If we understand data visualization, it will be clear that a relevant skill matrix should be worked upon with the right ratings on the kind of skills that dominate performance within specific work roles. For instance, for the position of a data analyst, critical thinking and communication can be certain important components of the soft skills matrix. Look into the skills required for hiring a prospective data analyst.

Although HR managers bank upon the soft skills, it remains a priority to understand the rankings of the technical skills within the job role concerned.

On the other hand, a majority of recruiters from various markets state that they are not well equipped to understand the technical skills required for any particular job role/s as concerned. Therefore, while making a recruitment decision, it is important that the technical experts (also referred to as domain experts) within organizations are given a fair chance of making the decision, based on a combination of skills and the accuracy of assessment patterns.

Certain generic job roles like that of an administrative assistant, or a security staff might require high levels of emotional intelligence (viz. Soft skills).

Professional recruiters state that customer facing roles require a high level of soft skill indulgence within the personality of the prospective hire. Therefore, in order to make a well-rounded hiring decision professional HRs should create a relevant skill matrix before they fit in people within the matrix tagged with relevant scoring on each skill.

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Going forward, it is explained that, hiring should be based on potential of performance while knowledge takes on a back seat in certain hiring processes within ‘performing organizations’. On the contrary, not only the soft skills, experts suggest that a cultural fit should be determined before you close the hiring process. Ensure that you make a proper assessment of the prospective hire before you close off the deal.

Many of the contemporary young managers would like to know more on the assessment strategies. At this juncture, it is to be noted that age old evaluation and assessment processes need to be replaced by the human resource managers. Creating a data oriented assessment framework needs to be prioritized by the interviewers. Therefore, do you need to ask questions focused on the behavioral aspect?  Yes, sometimes asking in-depth questions to assess behavioral qualities work in favor of the HR managers. Best ways however, remain to be an interactive platform founded on certain practical scenarios. Simulations or role play based interactions could be carried out within the stipulated framework to make the correct hiring decision. It is interesting to note that, in some organizations, assessments of the prospective candidates are carried out for a certain period of time. Prospective hires could be put in stressful situations, or could be made to interact freely at various levels in order to understand them better. Putting up a committee of members helps in taking a firm and better recruitment decision.

Conclusion

Soft skills remain to be an important component of human personality, the assessment of which can help drive recruitment decisions, globally. Contemporary organizations in various markets focus on developing a detailed skill matrix, to help the HR managers close recruitments within a shorter time span. Professional recruiters, on the other hand, emphasize the relevance of assessment procedures, while asking the HR professionals to be thorough on the process integration to determine the skill ratings. Simulations, therefore, should be powerful enough to engage the audience, while intense role plays are promoted by many interviewers to comprehend inherent soft skills within chosen human personalities, to be precise.

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