Soft Skills: meaning, definition, examples

Soft skills are demonstrated by how people interact with others, resolve problems, adapt to change, and work in a team. In today’s world, where technical knowledge quickly becomes obsolete, soft skills are turning into increasingly important indicators.

For a recruiter, the ability to identify soft skills at the hiring stage is a critically important skill that helps to choose not just a specialist, but a future successful team member.

Almost all famous entrepreneurs have “soft skills” thanks to which they stand out from the crowd and achieve success. Creativity, unconventional thinking, and leadership qualities helped Steve Jobs create Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg come up with Facebook.

What are soft skills?

Emotional intelligence is an employee’s ability to understand the emotions of others and analyze their desires and motivations. “Soft skills” are practically synonym with emotional intelligence in professional settings.

Soft skills are determined in the style and effectiveness of a person’s work in a team.

Soft skills meaning and history

• 1970s – The first soft skills investigation were conducted in the US Army. The military noticed that cohesive groups worked more effectively than simply disciplined ones.
• 1980s –1990s – Businesses understand that in addition to technical qualifications, an employee’s social qualities are also important. Training in teamwork, negotiations and stress management begins to appear.
• 2000s – globalization, rize of the Internet and the first online teams. Soft Skills become key for remote work and international business.
• 2020s – the world is changing rapidly: working in different time zones, distance learning, artificial intelligence. Now employers value not only a diploma, but also learning ability, the ability to work in a team and solve problems in an unconventional way

TOP 3 soft skills examples, based on the recruiting importance 

During recruitment, employers pay special attention to a variety of soft skill of candidates. They determine the candidate’s willingness and ability to perform real tasks and solve cases that are often encountered during communication with colleagues/managers/customers in the workplace.

Communication skills and ability to work in a team

One of the most important skills is the ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with others. That’s why it’s important to work with professionals who can clearly express their thoughts and ideas, listen to others, and find common ground.

How to assess such soft skills? Typically, recruiters pay attention to the quality of experience working in a team, the candidate’s ability to resolve conflicts and build a positive team climate and stable relationships with clients. Therefore, the candidate can be asked about the following:

1. How would you talk to a team member who seems to be falling behind on their duties? What if it directly affects your tasks?
2. Describe how you would convey complex or specific information to someone on an important task? What would you pay special attention to?
3. Imagine that a conflict situation has arisen in a team. In this case, the task needs to be released early. What would you do?

Leadership skills and decision-making ability

Recruiters assess how candidates respond to problems, what contribution they make to the work process, and what they are guided by when solving strategic issues.

It is most appropriate to check such skills during an interview or a separate HR call.

For example, you can ask the following questions to assess soft skills:

1. Tell us about a situation in which you had to act as a team leader. What specifically did you do in this role, and what was the result?
2. Tell us about your experience resolving conflicts in a team. Describe the most recent conflict situation you were involved in.
3. What a difficult decision you made in a past project and how they affected the final results.

These questions help determine how the candidate interacts with others and how they make important decisions.

Proactivity and autonomy in business

In assessing these qualities, for example, a scenario analysis on a certain decision can help: the recruiter tells the candidate a case from practice and asks how he would solve this situation. Cases help determine whether the candidate is ready to take responsibility and show initiative. With the help of these approaches, you can analyze proactivity, practicality, readiness for responsibility and quick reactions. 

Teamwork is an additional criterion for assessing this skill. Questions about communication in current or previous teams can show you how autonomously a specialist approaches tasks, or whether he or she will expect other members of a team to do everything for him or her.

Other soft skills list often mentioned include:

• Information skills: the skill to quickly comprehend, retain, and distribute information
• Creativity: the capacity to think unconventionally, discover innovative solutions, avoid stereotypes, and explore new perspectives
• Stress resistance: the ability to respond adequately in stressful situations, to quickly make the right decision
• Сritical thinking
• Adaptability  

Nowadays, HR companies often publish lists of their most in-demand soft skills on social media and blogs. By doing so, they set certain benchmarks and “trends” for other recruiters and HR.

And then questions arise: How come you don’t know how to communicate? How come you don’t aspire to leadership? Apparently, there’s something wrong with you.

On the other hand, the uniqueness of each person often prevents them from following this “fashion.” It’s like seeing a stylish outfit on someone else and buying it to follow the trend. But it turns out it doesn’t suit you at all and doesn’t suit your body type.

The same goes for soft skills.

Most experienced professionals in recruiting and HR activities believe that soft skill is just as important as technical skills. And in some cases, even more important. For example, a strong developer who can’t communicate with the team or the customer can slow down the entire project. Conversely, a specialist with moderate technical skills, but excellent soft skills can become a driver of change.

Nervous system types: how does this relate to soft skills and abilities?

Nervous system parameters are directly linked to the development of individual soft skills. It’s important to remember that qualities such as stress resilience or multitasking are determined by the type of nervous system a person receives at birth, unchanged throughout life, like fingerprints.

A strong nervous system gives a person resilience to stress. Naturally, a person with a weak nervous system cannot perform a job under daily stress and will eventually leave this job.

Nervous system balance, determined by the ratio of excitation and inhibition of nervous processes, is also of great importance. For example, there are people who “get going” instantly and complete tasks very quickly. Such people are sometimes difficult to stop and are considered impulsive and “easy-going.”

 These individuals are not suited for monotonous, routine work, such as document management or dealing with large volumes of information. However, they are ideal for sales, which requires quick reactions and active communication with clients.

At the same time, the mobility and inertia of the nervous system also determines how quickly a person adapts to change, to a new job or project.

Soft skills definition: checking during recruitment

Recruiters know the techniques that can improve the effectiveness of interviews and test more of 10 soft skills and competencies. Here are the most popular of them:

Projective Questioning Method: This technique helps gather information without the bias of socially expected answers. Candidates are asked to share their opinion on a given situation, for example: “What are common reasons for employee dismissals?” or “How can employees be motivated to work with full dedication?” By responding to these scenarios indirectly, specialists project the situation onto their own experience, providing more honest answers.

PARLA Model: A structured conversation focused on the candidate’s skills, where the recruiter examines past situations. The dialogue follows this sequence: Problem (the main issue), Action (steps taken by the candidate), Result (outcome), Learned (lessons gained), and Applied (how knowledge/skills were implemented). The information collected is then compared with the company’s requirements.

STAR Method: A widely used competency-based interview technique. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. Recruiters use this good method to identify examples of relevant skills and experiences that match the position.

Case Analysis (Situational Interview): This method assesses soft skills, potential, and thinking style. Candidates analyze a given case, evaluate possible solutions, and select the most appropriate option based on the situation.

Examples and categories of questions for assessing soft skills

Communication

How the candidate interacts with others, how clearly they express their thoughts and how well they listen.

Question:

• Describe a situation when you explained a complex idea to someone who had no technical background.
• What is more important to you in team communication – talking or listening? Why?

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to understand your own and others’ emotions and respond to them correctly.

Question:

• Tell me about a case when you disagreed with a colleague but still managed to maintain a productive relationship.
• How do you usually respond to constructive job criticism?

Critical Thinking

The ability to analyze information, question individual provisions and make the right decisions.

Questions:

• Have you ever questioned a team decision? What was the outcome?
• How do you decide if a source of information is trustworthy?

Creativity

The ability to generate new ideas, think outside the box, and find unconventional solutions.

Question:

• Describe a time when you were able to come up with a creative solution to a difficult job problem.
• When was the last time you felt like you were thinking ‘outside the box’? What was the result?

Stress Resilience

How does the candidate handle pressure, deadlines, and conflicts?

Question:

• Describe your most stressful workday. How did you survive this day?
• What is your usual method for recovering after a stressful project or period of high workload?

Adaptability

Flexibility of thinking, willingness to change, learning new things.

Question:

• Describe me a time when your plans suddenly changed. How did you react?
• In what way do you learn new tools or technologies? What is an example you can give recently?

Leadership qualities

The ability to be a leader, motivate others without coercion and take responsibility.

Question:

• Have you ever had to take the initiative in a team without formal leadership?
• How do you motivate employees who are not your subordinates?

Teamwork

The ability to cooperate, support others, share knowledge.

Questions:

• What you reaction on situation when someone on your team not doing well?
• What does being a good team player mean to you?

Time Management

Ability to manage working time, set priorities, and meet deadlines.

Questions:

• How do you plan your business day when you have several tasks with the same priority?
• Have you ever been in a situation where you didn’t have enough time to complete a task on time? What did you do?

These questions help not only to hear beautiful answers, but also to see the candidate’s behavioral markers and values. 

Soft skill development: 5 essential steps

The HR department faces the task of not only timely and accurately considering the soft skills of job candidates, but also of existing employees. The development of soft skills of employees directly correlates with the character of the person and his position. For example, a junior remote developer will need communication skills, and A shift supervisor at a plant will need the ability to be a peacemaker in conflicts.

Training managers are responsible for the development of soft skills in the company. We have prepared instructions on how to correctly make a plan and ensure the practice of soft skills.

Step 1. Find out the needs. Conduct an assessment of employees’ soft skills. The simplest method is a personality test. You can use ready-made templates and assess the personality of employees according to five aspects: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, acceptance and neuroticism. Some companies invite specialists from abroad to compose questions individually, but it is easier and cheaper to use ready-made questionnaires.

Step 2. Select priority skills. So that training does not become a cart that is pulled in different directions, coordinate the vector of development. To do this, answer the questions: who is to be taught, what is to be obtained as a result. Then set a goal using the SMART method.

For example, you decided to develop the skill of public speaking in the team. The goal of “teaching all employees to speak in public” sounds vague. According to the SMART method, it is possible to formulate as follows: “Achieving an improvement in the skills of 70% of the staff in 10 employed.”

Step 3. Think over the plan of training events. Tools with a big level of interactivity are suitable for the development of valuable soft skills of employees. What can be done:

• A series of webinars with a mandatory discussion
• Field training for consolidation — team building
• Video course with homework in the form of detailed answers
• Training in the format of mentorship, individual or group

Step 4. Engage a mentor or coach. The head of the department can conduct training on hard skills, and for the development of soft skills, it is better to invite a specialist with experience in mentoring. This can be an internal employee or an external trainer.

Step 5. Collect feedback. Summarize with the team. Analyze whether it was possible to achieve the set goals. Ask to leave feedback on the format and use of the training – it will be useful for future trainings.

Instead of a summary

Assessing a candidate’s soft skills is an important step in recruiting and determining their suitability for a specific position. Unfortunately, sometimes specialists may have some strong technical capabilities, but insufficiently developed soft skills. The latter are critical for successful teamwork and good communication with colleagues, clients and management – this is why recruiters should apply modern (and adequate) methods and use different soft skills questions that would correspond to the needs of a specific team.

In addition to assessment questions, observe the candidate’s behavior during the interview. Tone of voice, active listening, politeness, confidence without aggression — these are all signals. Even a delay in answering a call or responding to a technical problem on Zoom can say a lot about a candidate’s stress tolerance and flexibility.

Add a soft skill funnel to the selection process. It is worth including an assessment of soft skills at the screening stage – for example, through short video interviews, emotional intelligence tests or analytical thinking. 

Soft skills work in tandem with professional skills. For example, leadership without deep expertise can be empty, and emotional intelligence without basic organization is ineffective. Soft skills are not about being a “nice person”, but about the possibility to work effectively in a real work environment. And if a recruiter can recognize them, this is their own soft skill that has great value in the market. So, this balance is the key to the right hiring.