I like to ask hypothetical questions. They'll vary depending on the persona and what specific role they are interviewing for, but usually they have an angle of trying to gain insight into their soft skills. I might ask how they would handle a particular situation as a team leader, for example, or how they would make use of their unique strengths to handle a certain problem. Hypothetical questions are a great way to get really honest answers from candidates since they can't as easily prepare for them.
The most successful soft skills assessment I have employed involves real-time teamwork activities which take place without preparation or scripting. I place candidates into mini projects which require feedback handling and unclear situations while allowing things to become slightly disorganized. We tested one candidate by providing him with conflicting directions from two team members to observe his reaction between freezing and seeking clarification. The top candidates remained composed during challenging situations by asking precise questions while they restored project direction through natural team involvement. The way candidates handle unexpected situations and stressful moments remains hidden during standard interview procedures. The high-pressure situation exposes a person's emotional intelligence and their ability to adapt and their ego strength more effectively than any personality assessment.
We assess listening skills through paired interviews where candidates ask rather than answer first. Their questions reveal depth of understanding, preparation, and empathy effortlessly. Leaders who listen before speaking signal maturity rare among early-stage professionals. Observation of attentiveness instinctively shows whether dialogue feels transactional or relational. True communicators prioritise connection over presentation within limited conversational windows. This reversal challenges expectations, surfacing personality beyond polished rehearsed narratives instantly. It builds respect by placing focus on mutual curiosity rather than evaluation. Those able to sustain dialogue through inquiry naturally demonstrate collaborative instincts. We hire individuals whose curiosity fuels trust before self-promotion emerges. Listening remains the purest evidence of leadership competence across disciplines universally.
What's worked well for us is using team-based interviews. Instead of a one-on-one conversation, we bring candidates into a small group discussion with employees from different departments. It's not about putting anyone on the spot—it's about seeing how they listen, contribute, and respond to different personalities. You can tell right away whether someone is respectful, adaptable, and comfortable collaborating, all soft skills we value highly in our company. This setup reveals things a traditional interview can't. When candidates interact naturally with our team, we see their communication style, empathy, and even how they handle a bit of pressure. Some people light up in group settings because they're team-oriented by nature, while others show they prefer working more independently. Either way, it helps us make better hiring decisions and ensures the person we bring on fits not just the job, but the culture we've worked hard to build.
The typical working day for most employees will involve unexpected challenges that cause them to think on their feet, so it seems counterintuitive to create an interview environment that's undermined by predictable questions. Traditional interviews take the form of verbal assessments where candidates are tasked with responding to certain areas of concern about their resumes and their capabilities to tackle their daily job roles with transferable skills. While these considerations are important, soft skills may only emerge when candidates are tasked with relying on their instincts. This means that asking more left-field questions can be a good test of their ability to communicate clearly when in unpredictable situations. Asking a question like 'If you were an animal, what would you be?' has become a popular question to look for visible cues for soft skills, but using more miscellaneous questions that aren't intrusive is an effective way to assess soft skills like the ability to communicate within teams.
I will often ask questions like "what do you contribute most as a team member, outside of the actual work you are doing?" This gives them a chance to talk about their soft skills - maybe they are a good leader, or they are really creative, or they're able to step in and help with whatever is needed, or something else. I think this kind of question gives great insight into unique skills they have that they typically don't have listed on their resume.
At LAXcar, I have regular exercises with applicants, and since the recruiting takes place with my team of chauffeurs, I often experience a fictional incident where the flight is delayed at the last moment, so the client's schedule is ruined. To maintain and correct the situation, the candidate must speak to the dispatcher, change the plan for the meeting, and calm the client in less than a minute. One candidate impressed me when she proactively called the client to inform them of the new arrival gate and ETA respectfully and calmly, and at the same time, organized a backup vehicle. This act portrayed initiative, empathy, and composure under extreme stress. These micro-moments are always missed in traditional interviews. This real-life test evaluates how people act and conduct themselves amid chaos and in luxury transportation.
With the exception of interpersonal skills, psychometric assessments are substantially better measures of soft skills than interviews. In reality, most soft skills are intrapersonal, not interpersonal. Work ethic, resilience, integrity, these characteristics can't be expressed verbally and thus can't be measured using interviews. Sure, you can ask questions about them, but it's the candidates with interpersonal skills who perform best. That doesn't mean they actually have those soft skills, it just means they can speak convincingly about them, very different skills. Psychometric assessments, however, are designed specifically to measure soft skills without the interference of interpersonal skills and charisma. That's not to say that interviews (and interpersonal skills) aren't important; they are just the wrong tool for the job. Indeed, doing both gives you the best of both worlds, showing what we call "incremental validity" over each other. But ultimately, organizations must decouple having soft skills from being able to convince people that they have soft skills. Once you cease conflating the two, psychometrics become the most viable soft skills assessment tool.
The best technique I have employed to test soft skills when hiring is by providing the candidates with a chaotic client problem to solve aloud as I intentionally alter the requirements throughout the conversation to make the candidate experience some pressure and introduce a new strategy. I introduce situations when a client requests first-page positioning within two weeks and has significant technical problems, and halfway during their explanation, I introduce new nuances, such as the client halving the budget or disclosing that they require the results before a significant product release, and the candidates will be required to change their communication approach and style on the fly. The method derives the information that standard interviews cannot provide since it demonstrates how a person can think under pressure instead of the ability to memorize narratives of previous achievements. People who present themselves as having an impressive resume often have to freeze or get defensive when the solution that first worked is no longer effective and others will immediately begin asking questions about what is of most interest to the client and change their advice accordingly, and observing that variation tells me more about their ability to solve problems and their level of emotional intelligence than any worded response ever would.
The most accurate representation of an individual's soft skills is through live group problem-solving sessions at the end of the hiring process. A realistic, actual business project scenario with partial information, and changing priorities is presented, and I evaluate how each candidate uses their communication, adaptability and collaboration with other team members. This reveals true behavior when there is some pressure (such as conflict resolution), and who will work effectively in teams and allow other team members to contribute. In this type of situation, I have seen reserved applicants exhibit superior leadership, and very confident applicants show difficulty in listening. In a traditional interview, the interviewer has too much structure and has been prepped for the exact same questions over and over again, so it is hard to determine how the applicant will react when changes are made to the plans. When candidates are required to brainstorm solutions, use creative thinking, and problem solve in a collaborative manner to complete an open ended task, their patterns of empathy, humility and critical thinking are exposed. This allows me to assess who can provide calm and clear direction, which typically defines who will ultimately succeed in the long term in a project based environment.
I believe that conventional interviews are absolutely ineffective in terms of observing the actual performance of a person under the pressure. On my part we have a 30 minute client crisis test. We issue a loan file to the candidates and say, here is the investment loan of 900,000 dollars and the valuation of the loan just found itself 100,000 short the night before the settlement of the loan. They are assigned to call me immediately, and I am the high net worth client who is completely panicked. Frankly speaking, I do not need any other tests than this one does. To me, textbook answers are useless at that time. I observe how they can receive the panic of the client without complicating the situation. I will have to check whether they are able to guard the relationship and at the same time, work out a 3 point recovery plan. It is this single test that separates that 1 in 10 applicants who actually work in chaos, and the 9 who just read off the paper.
I'll give candidates a quick SEO audit to present live. It shows how they handle pressure and explain their thinking. At YEAH! Local once, we saw someone's real communication style and nerves, things a regular Q&A never reveals. I look for curiosity and a willingness to collaborate during the test. That's usually more important than what's on their resume.
Among the most efficient approaches that we have successfully utilized to evaluate soft skills when recruiting is behavioral situational exercises otherwise referred to as role-playing. We often opt to give them a real-life situation to handle; for example, resolving a conflict between the collaborators or calming down a stubborn customer. In this way, we ask them to physically display them through a dramatic response how they would handle the two scenarios. This approach is more helpful than interviews because it tests the candidates' ability to respond in real-time, along with their abilities to think on their feet, articulate and resolve issues in a well-organized manner. Therefore, it tells us more about the individual's emotional intelligence, receptivity and social abilities and traits that are complicated to obtain using general Q&A platforms.
Here's the thing about hiring teachers: regular interviews don't cut it. We have candidates teach a quick lesson to real kids now. That's where you see what they're made of. When a student asks a weird question or the projector dies, you learn everything. Do they panic or do they just roll with it and help the kid? We have our answer right then.
Group tasks work better. You see how people actually solve a problem together, which tells you more than any interview question. People can rehearse answers, but they can't fake how they listen or handle different opinions. This reveals their real instincts and how they'll handle working with people from different backgrounds.
In a remote SaaS team, I've found informal chats tell you way more than formal interviews. I'll have candidates join a casual virtual stand-up to see how they actually work with the team on a real problem. You learn more about their collaboration and curiosity this way. Just keep the vibe relaxed so people can be themselves, those little interactions are more telling than any polished answer.
The most effective technique of assessing soft skills that I have ever used is behavioral situational exercises. They are a designed simulation of real-life events used to assess one's behavior within those events. I could create a scenario and provide role-playing guidelines that include a problem-solving aspect. For example, I might want to play out a combat scenario with another team member or ask the candidate to think of several approaches to a task under a considerable amount of time pressure. I like this technique because even if standard questions are used to respond in advance by the candidates, role-playing activities can exhibit them how they respond to real-life situations. Quick-thinking, team play, and the ability to fully function under duress are just a few of the applicant's abilities that I may see first hand. The most beneficial thing in this method is that I can learn better about an applicant's personality and cultural fit.
I learn more about a candidate's people skills by putting them in group projects. I once set up a mock negotiation with actors playing motivated sellers, and their reactions told you everything. Some stayed calm, listened, and adjusted on the spot. The good ones didn't stand out at first, but as the exercise continued, the natural communicators and collaborators became obvious. You just don't see that in a standard interview.
At Plasthetix, we have candidates present a marketing idea and get feedback from their future teammates. Their reactions say everything. You can see if they're actually humble and can collaborate, or just saying the right things in an interview. This tells you so much more about their personality than any standard question. It's how we find real skills, not just good interviewers.
The best interview trick? Put candidates in a room and have them clean it together. You immediately see who cooperates, who steps up to lead, and how they handle feedback. After a few rounds, how they solve problems as a team becomes obvious. It tells you so much more than any interview question about how they'll actually fit in.