Recruiting, Selection & Retention: Interview for Intangibles & Soft Skills (PDF)

Use this instrument to assess candidates being interviewed regarding the intangibles important to your organization, including diversity. Soft skills can easily be assessed during an interview by asking the right questions and having in mind the necessary competencies and skills associated with the position for which you are interviewing. Using the ratings for responses to the questions helps an interviewing team decide which candidate is the best among several candidates, particularly when they seem very comparable in knowledge, experience and demeanor.

With this instrument, select the appropriate questions and modify them as you see fit for the position for which interviews are being conducted. We propose a 1 to 3 rating scale, but you may also use a 1 to 5 rating scale. Depending on how many categories of questions used, simply add up all of the scores, and divide them by the number of applicable categories. If there is a finer comparison among candidates needed, you can average the numbers by category especially if some categories are more important than others based on the industry, the organization and the position, and even the level of direct client/customer contact anticipated.

Interviewing categories, in addition to Diversity, include but are not limited to the following:

•  Client/Customer Care
•  Communication
•  Team Orientation
•  Organizational Skills
•  Problem-Solving Skills
•  Project-Related Skills