Top 100 interview questions - iCIMS

to identify soft skills

Top 100 interview questions

Top 100 interview questions to identify soft skills skills

Most people carefully prepare their interviews, re-search the company and sometimes look for extra tips to ace interview questions on the internet. As a result, answers are often similar and generic, candidates avoid taking risks and it becomes more difficult to identify original personalities and motivations. Each step of the recruiting process is the opportunity to get to know candidates better and learn more about their experiences, hard skills and most importantly, soft skills. Those soft skills are what differentiates a great candidate from true talent.

We have written this ebook to encourage you to go futher in your search for top talent and to guide you through the best questions to ask to find the hidden gem.

Behavioral/human skillsHarder to measure and prove

Technical skills Measurable. Quantifiable

HARD SKILLS

SOFT SKILLS

IT skills Experiences

Qualifications References

Language skills

Certifications

Intuition Concentration

Attitude Communication

Empathy Leadership

Creativity Emotional intelligence


What are the best questions to evaluate soft skills?

A few things to be cautious about:

Once required soft skills for a position have been determined (keep it around 4 to 5), you can start the process of identifying them in candidates.

60% of managers say they have difficulties evaluating soft skills in candidatesThe goal : find the right balance between original questions that don’t destabilize candidates, but precise and open enough to let them express themselves and show you who they are.

Tip: to simplify and speed up the first phase of the process, you can digitalize the first interview and have candidates pre-record their answers on video.

1 2 3

Do not ask inappropriate or discriminating questions

Make sure each question helps identify a specific skill

Notify the candidate on the types of questions you’ll ask


Top 10 soft skills to look for in interviews

1. Problem-solving

2. Critical thinking

3. Creativity

4. Team management

5. Coordination

6. Emotional intelligence

7. Decision-making

8. Customer service

9. Negotiation

10. Cognitive flexibility


20 skills to evaluate in 5 questions

Adaptabilityis agile and can adapt to constant change, good resistance to pressure and stress, is resilient and open-minded

1. What do you find the hardest when starting work at a new company?

2. Tell me about a time you were asked to do something completely new. How did you react? What did you learn?

3. What is the biggest change you had to face in your life? How did you adapt to the situation?

4. Tell me about a time you had to adapt your working style to improve collaboration on a project with colleagues or to reach targets.

5. Tell me about a time or situation where you had to be reactive and flexible.

Ambitionis determined to succeed, surpasses their own expectations, develops

1. How do you measure the progress you make in achieving objectives you set for yourself?

2. Can you tell me about a decision you have taken to further your career?

3. What does professional success look like to you?

4. What is the quality you don’t have but would like to?

5. The big boss comes into your office and says you can have a million dollars to launch your business. What is it?

Competitiona “winner”, relishes a personal challenge, not afraid of making mistakes, not afraid of failing

1. What have you learned from comparing yourself to others?

2. Are you motivated by winning (or the fear of losing)? Tell me why.

3. How do you react to failure? to winning?

4. Tell me about a situation where you understood what you could have done better once you had finished something.

5. Some people react badly when they don’t win. What do you think about that?


Coordinationmanages cross-team projects successfully, adapts to the people around them, meets deadlines

1. What do you think about team meetings?

2. In your opinion, what are the best ways of communicating within and between teams?

3. People have asked you the same question five times today. How do you react? What do you do so that you can avoid having to repeat yourself and keep getting the same questions in future?

4. Who are the people you most enjoy working with?

5. What, in your opinion, is the relationship between quality, time, and money in project management?

Creativityfinds new ideas, tries, surprises, experiments, imagines

1. Which kitchen utensil would you be?

2. How do people communicate in a perfect world?

3. Could you tell me about a project where you followed a different path and process from usual? What were the results? How did your colleagues / customers respond?

4. Sell me a trip to space.

5. What is your most brilliant idea? Why?

Curiosityis keen to know, keeps up to date, seeks new ideas, keeps learning

1. How do you keep up with what’s happening in your field? How do you monitor changes in your market?

2. What have you done to develop your professional skills?

3. How do you prefer to learn?

4. How do you keep your skills up to date?

5. What do you know about our company? How did you find out about us?



Cognitive flexibilityability to switch from one behavior to another depending on requirements, and reflect on several options to solve problems quickly

1. What do you do to show the people you are talking to that you are listening but disagree?

2. Can you describe your company’s activities in a sentence, to investors, customers, and your friends?

3. What role does empathy play in your work?

4. What do you think about weighing pros and cons before you make an important decision?

5. Could you describe a situation where you quickly demonstrated an innovative approach?

Team workthe ability to combine forces within a team to achieve a common goal

1. You need to collaborate with someone who’s hard to work with. How do you deal with it?

2. Tell me about one of your best team work experiences and how you contributed.

3. Can you describe the best manager you had in your career?

4. What is your preferred management style? The one that fits with your working style the most?

5. What do you enjoy most about team work?

Stress managementhow one deals with stressful situations, how they make the most of it

1. What stresses you out the most at work? What are your stress triggers?

2. How do you avoid stressful situations?

3. How do you reduce your stress level in a critical situation?

4. Do you strive or freeze under pressure?

5. How do you work under pressure?



Time managementability to manage time smartly, is productive, manages resources soundly

1. How important is time management for you?

2. How do you prioritize your work?

3. Tell me about a time you missed a deadline? How did you manage it?

4. How do you deal with stress at work?

5. What are a few methods you use to manage your time wisely?

Emotional intelligenceuses their emotions productively to manage their own and others’ behavior and is aware of their emotions

1. What impact does your good mood have on your colleagues?

2. How do you defuse a tense situation?

3. One of your colleagues is behaving unusually and does not seem in good shape. How do you react?

4. How do you see the line-management relationship?

5. How do you mediate an argument between colleagues?

Decision-makingmakes the right decisions, asks the right questions, finds solutions

1. Describe your decision process when managing a project.

2. How do you prioritize tasks when managing a project?

3. What is the last important decision you have made and what pushed you to go in that direction?

4. When you have an objective but you do not have the tools or means to reach it, how do you proceed?

5. What three questions do you ask yourself before making a decision?



Leadershipability to support the team in implementing a successful project, unites people, inspires confidence

1. You feel that a member of your team (whom you manage) is not producing very good work and that you would have done better in their place. What do you do? How do you react?

2. Who are the people you have most enjoyed working with? What was the relationship like?

3. Which super hero are you?

4. How do you develop your employees’ skills?

5. Can you tell me about a situation where you took the lead on a project?

Negotiationknows how to get what they want, understands win-win relationships, understands each party’s interests

1. Tell me about your biggest negociation moment. How did you prepare for it?

2. You’re not satisfied with the budget allocated to a project. How do you negotiate a budget margin with your management?

3. You need to convince your manager that it was impossible to meet your targets. How can you prove it?

4. A prospective customer thinks your price is too high. How do you reach a compromise?

5. What does good negotiation look like to you?

Critical thinkingis thoughtful, draws pertinent conclusions, can support their decisions

1. Why are you changing jobs? What should your current company change to keep you?

2. What would keep you from accepting a company’s offer?

3. What is the first thing you would change in our company?

4. What did you think about our website?

5. If you had to split the world in three ensembles, which would they be and why?



Perseverancetenacious, does not lose heart when faced with difficulties, finds new solutions, does not give up

1. What frustrates you or makes you lose your patience at work?

2. How do you react to negative feedback?

3. Can you tell me about a situation in which you persevered? Why?

4. What does failure look like to you?

5. At what point do you abandon a project or an idea?

Persuasionability to convince and influence others

1. Tell me about a time you had to convince someone.

2. What do you think you can bring our company?

3. What makes you a better candidate than the others?

4. How would you sell our product differently?

5. How do you manage an unhappy customer?

Proactivitytakes the lead on projects, anticipates future tasks and thinks ahead

1. Tell me about a time you carried out initiative in your old company?

2. Tell me about a time you identified a new problem and solved it?

3. Give me an example of a new idea you recently suggested to your manager. Describe the steps you took to put it in place.

4. Are you autonomous in your work?

5. An unexpected event happens. How do you react?



Problem-solvingis able to find solutions to complex problems quickly, knows how to identify problems and strengths, good analytical skills

1. Tell me about a project where you felt that your usual approach wouldn’t work. How did you adapt?

2. What new processes have you developed in response to a problem? How did you develop them? Who was involved?

3. You have over 700 unread e-mails in your inbox. You have an hour to deal with them. What do you do?

4. Do you know how many times a day the hands of a watch cross over each other?

Customer serviceis able to build strong customer relationships and deal with difficult situations

1. Tell me about a time your had negative customer feeback. How did you deal with the situation?

2. How important are customer relations for you?

3. When were you most proud of your work with customers?

4. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult customer with impossible requests. How did you deal with him or her?

5. Give me 3 adjectives to qualify the importance of customer service.



How to get the best answers?

• Select 2 or 3 soft skills to assess during the selection process. Customers who use our platform assess an average of two essential soft skills during the pre-screening stage.

• Prioritize open questions & exploring scenarios. You also need to formulate your question or series of questions so that the applicant can respond concisely, accurately, and use examples.

• Only accept complete questions: ask for concrete examples and make sure the candidate gives precise anwers.

• Give candidates enough time to answer: the best response requires some time to think.

• Go more in-depth and ask the candidate to detail their answers.

The STAR method is an easy way to evaluate answers:

the Situation at the outset

the Tasks carried out

the Actions taken

the Results achieved


The most original questions HR professionals shared with usWe asked our sample respondents to share the most original questions they ask candidates to identify soft skills.

Here are our favorite.

How would you describe what you do to a 3 year-old child?

What do you do if you disagree with one or

more team members?

What would you change in the hall/lobby/room you waited for

me in?

What moves you?What kind of people do you

prefer to work with?

If I asked your manager about you, what would they say?

What drives you?

What is the last meal you prepared?

In what working environment do you strive?

Can you describe a typical day at work?

When is the last time you were wrong?

What gets you out of bed in the morning?


How technology serves soft skills

Benefits of video interviewing:

of candidates drop out of a selection process that is too long or complicated.

Therefore, planning the selection process is essential to provide the best experience for candidates, and at the same time evaluate them in the most accurate way. Using technology to optimize a selection process while learning more about a candidate never fails. Pre-recorded and live video interviews are excellent tools to detect the skills that the candidate needs for the position, as well as assess his or her non-verbal language.

60%

25% 35%

more applicants met via prescreening

of face-to-face interviews avoided with video pre-screening

Higher manager engagement thanks to video sharing

Talent Powers Transformation iCIMS is the talent cloud company that empowers organizations to attract, engage, hire, and advance the right talent that builds a diverse, winning workforce. iCIMS accelerates transformation for a community of more than 4,000 customers, including a third of the Fortune 100, that employ more than 30 million people worldwide.

Learn more about our suite of products at icims.com

Top 100 interview questions - iCIMS

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