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There is much press today about whether people skills (also known as soft skills) are considered during the hiring process. Do people skills count more than your occupational (aka hard skills)?

Quite honestly, to me the debate is both useless and a bit risky. Your professional career is in your hands. Hiring managers, teams of current employees, HR reps are people. They may consider people skills. Do you want to gamble that those interviewing you don’t consider people skills in making the choice? Whether they do it consciously or subconsciously, why bet that they won’t? Develop your professional people skills. Work on you AND the work. Be workplace ready!

Work on You AND The Work by:vaXzine

When to start? Yesterday. Developing your people skills can begin in school. In can happen in your everyday life — inside and outside of work. I was lucky enough to have a mother who demanded it of us. So when I graduated college with a BS Mathematics, I had been developing the interpersonal skills of my right brain while sharpening and expanding my left brain.

Is it too late to start? Never. I continue to learn and improve my people skills. You have infinite interactions with people and it costs nothing to learn “on the job” so to speak. Even those who debate whether or not interviewers consider people skills in the hiring decision, agree that people skills are expected and assessed for job assignments and promotions once you have the job.

How to start? The most productive first step is to understand your own personality type — for two reasons.

1. You will interpret what other people say and do based on your own personality type.  It is your reference sheet.
2. Knowing your type gives you limitless potential for adapting to others of a different personality type.  It is the fuel for success in teamwork, leadership, customer relations, and long term professional friendships.

Here is some valuable footage on personality type differences to spur your learning: GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type.

Get Started! Take a well respected personality indicator like The Kiersey Temperament Sorter and then use the knowledge in your daily interactions. People-skills are the conduit to delivering your occupational knowledge to those around you and to the company that employs you.

If you get stuck, you can always call me (or my mother) for help!

Warmest wishes,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach in This Technical World
Masters in Org. Psychology

Flickr:Djenan

Posing questions to job candidates in interviews, no matter how behaviorally based, doesn’t show you what they will contribute.  Perhaps this is one reason temp-to-perm positions became so popular even with the buy-out fee the employer pays.  The employer has seen the temporary staff in action.

Yet you can achieve a similar success by engaging job candidates in action interviews.  If you are looking for candidates with 21^st century skills like creativity, conceptualizing, synthesis, re-invention, and true empathy/customer service, action interviews will get you there.  You can do them in-person or via videoconferencing.

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To find creative problem-solvers …

Hold a mock meeting on solving a generic problem.  Have the job candidate participate.  See if s/he offers out-of-the-box or safe ideas.  Does s/he contribute any ideas or simply listen?  You can assess the people-skills as well as creative problem solving. 

To spot empathetic staff for customer service …

Have your best customer service staff role play true-to-life scenarios with the job candidate.  Use blatant and subtle examples needing empathy and see what the job candidate responds.  It is one thing to discuss how you would handle a customer interaction and quite another to do it. 

To find synthesizers who can see new ideas in disparate details …

Pick a recent example that you solved through synthesis of different ideas. Give the different ideas to the job candidate and see how and what s/he synthesizes. 

To tap the pool of reinvention talent …

Give the candidate 2-3 everyday objects and ask them to make a new useful object out of them.  The useful object can be anything; it does not have to relate to work.  You are tapping innate abilities with this activity that you can later apply to work related challenges.

To find conceptualizers …

Have the team of interviewers and the job candidate play “What If We”.  You can use a hypothetical product or service that relates to your industry or customize it to relate to your organization’s products and service.   State the product or service in question.  Then each person states aloud “What If We …” to conceptualize a new angle or improvement.  This is also a great way to find out what the candidate knows about your industry and company.

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Remember: To find the best talent in the 21st century, engage candidates in action interviews.  Replace the bad surprises you get after hiring with happy surprises about job talent you find during action interviews. Combine them with resume/references and certain skill or interests tests where appropriate to get a fuller picture of the job candidate’s potential and interpersonal style.   

I welcome your comments, new ideas, and questions below. 

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach