Key Takeaways:
- Employers want confidence that their new hire can solve problems and make sound decisions in the workplace.
- The best way to prepare for soft skills interview questions is by knowing what you might be asked and having answers in your back pocket.
- Practice enough to remember the details in your examples without sounding too rehearsed.
What are soft skills in the workplace, and how do you know if you have them? Beyond your technical abilities, employers are looking for how you interact with others, what kind of impact you have on people and whether you have good judgment.
Descriptions of your skills and duties on a resume can only do so much work. Some of the best examples of soft skills come from professional situations you’ve been in.
Preparing for soft skills interview questions lets you practice talking about those situations before you start interviewing. In this guide, we’ll take a look at five traits to highlight and eight questions you can practice before interview day.
Why Employers Want Examples of Soft Skills
Candidates may know software really well but not know how to handle a colleague making a mistake or how to prioritize with two conflicting deadlines. That’s the general difference between soft skills vs. hard skills. Hard skills show that you can perform a task. Soft skills affect how reliably you perform a task in a real-world setting.
So, what are soft skills in the workplace from a hiring manager’s point of view?
They are patterns of behavior, and here are five that most employers look for.
1. Problem-Solving
During Apollo 13, carbon dioxide started to build up in the lunar module where three astronauts had taken shelter after an explosion. The problem was that the spare carbon dioxide filters in the command module were square and couldn’t connect to the lunar module’s round filter openings. The engineers couldn’t just order new parts, so they had to devise an adapter with materials they already had aboard the spacecraft.
Are most workplace problems this dire? Usually not. But the underlying habit is similar. You have to show how you identify real constraints and find workable routes around them. Simply saying you “think outside the box” proves very little.
The best examples of soft skills show how you communicated a change, considered who might be affected, weighed the risks and made a decision.
2. Leadership
Leadership may mean taking control of a delayed project or offering guidance to a new employee. The common thread is taking responsibility for what happens next.
A few traits good leaders show include:
- Clear direction
- Calm judgment
- Accountability
- Respect for other viewpoints
- Follow-through
The best examples of soft skills can be seen in what changed when you stepped forward.
3. Ethics
Ethics support professional trust. People rely on decisions you can defend when no one is watching.
Don’t simply call yourself honest. Describe a time when you caught your own invoice error and reported it before payment, or refused to alter a report to conceal a missed target. Those are examples of soft skills that give an employer something concrete to value.
4. Collaboration
Even independent employees need other people’s information or expertise. It’s important to know how to work with others to achieve a singular goal.
When you connect your collaboration skills to your past work, think about the shared results you helped create. Perhaps you translated a technical issue for a client-facing team or changed your process after a colleague found a gap or suggested an improvement. Again, these are strong examples of soft skills, and do much more than saying you’re a team player.
5. Time Management
Everyone is busy. Hiring managers aren’t looking for how busy you are. They want to know how you handle several priorities in the same hour. The best examples of soft skills should showcase your time management ability.
Explain how you compare deadlines before choosing a priority. A good story might involve how you negotiated a due date early so a client deliverable stayed on schedule.
Soft Skills Interview Questions
Now that you know what soft skills are in the workplace, you can work on preparing answers to some of the most common soft skills interview questions.
| Question | What to Focus On |
| Tell me about working with someone whose style differed from yours. | Discuss how you adapted without assigning blame to that person. |
| Describe a problem without an obvious solution that you overcame. | Explain the options you had, the reasoning behind your ultimate choice and the result. |
| Tell me about a time you made a mistake at work and how you learned from it. | Own the mistake and tell a story that showcases your accountability. |
| Tell me about a time you had to work with competing deadlines. | Walk through how you chose to prioritize each deadline. |
| Describe a time you had a disagreement with a colleague. | Focus on the resulting conversation and the resolution. |
| Was there ever a time you received difficult feedback? | Show that you listened and worked to incorporate that feedback moving forward. |
| Tell me about a time you influenced a decision without formal authority. | Explain how you took a leadership role in a professional situation or within a project and offered support to the team. |
| Was there ever a time when you had to make an inconvenient ethical decision in the workplace? | Explain the principle that guided you and the resolution. |
Show Employers the Person Behind the Resume
Soft skills interview questions give you a chance to show the way you respond, communicate and use your judgment under pressure.
If you need help preparing for your next interview so you can prepare the best possible answers ready for these questions, get in touch with our team at Whitman Associates. We provide interview guidance and placement support throughout the Washington, D.C. area.
