Money Research Collective’s editorial team solely created this content. Opinions are their own, but compensation and in-depth research determine where and how companies may appear. Many featured companies advertise with us. How we make money.
Top Skills You Should Look for in Job Candidates
By Susan Doktor MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Bringing new people into an organization can be an exciting and hopeful experience — but it can raise a lot of anxiety in people involved in the process. Will this candidate move us closer to our goals? Will he or she click with our company culture? What if I hire the wrong person?
If you’re a hiring manager or otherwise charged with attracting (and retaining) top talent, you may be wondering how you can increase your chances of finding the right candidate for a position. We’ve got a few tried-and-true tips for you. Some of our advice comes from ZipRecruiter, one of the best job posting sites for employers of all kinds. ZipRecruiter has been keeping the American workforce humming along since 2010. Take a look through these recommendations and walk into your next interview feeling more prepared and confident that you’ll have all the information you need to make a terrific hiring decision.
Why hire highly skilled candidates?
The reasons are manifold. The first is obvious: highly skilled candidates — specifically those that have the skills best suited to your job requirements — are likely to do a better job. That includes getting up to speed more quickly, successfully addressing all job responsibilities, and feeling comfortable taking a leadership role in your organization.
The other reason to hire highly skilled candidates is financial. Recruiting is expensive. On average, businesses spend $4,000 or more to bring someone new onboard. Recruiting eats up a substantial portion of a company’s human resources budget. So nobody wants to go through the hiring process once, only to have to rinse and repeat a short time later.
Hiring the right people the first time also helps you get the most out of the rest of your employees. Your crew will feel better when they know they aren’t rowing the boat alone. Working with highly qualified employees is inspiring and gives your workers confidence that your company is well-managed.
What are transferable skills?
Transferable skills are those that can be developed in a wide range of work settings. They’re portable from department to department, team to team, and industry to industry. Vice presidents who are being groomed for CEO level positions typically move from discipline to discipline during their training. They might serve as VP of Finance for a stint, then as VP of Operations. The reason they’re able to succeed in these multiple roles is because they have transferable skills.
Conventional wisdom suggests that employers should look for qualified candidates whose experience matches the job description you’ve put up on the job boards. But that might not always be the case. The best job candidate for your role may not check all of the boxes when it comes to industry experience and knowledge. But they may well have the transferable skills that allow them to succeed anywhere. As an employer, that gives you more hiring flexibility.
Let’s run through some of the transferable skills you should look for when hiring new employees.
The top 10 transferable skills companies to look for in job candidates
1. Communication skills
It’s hard to over-emphasize how important communication skills are in the workplace. For one thing, good communication brings efficiency and harmony to the work process. Clear communication is especially important at the leadership level, but it contributes to a company’s success across its entire employee hierarchy.
Good communication can be broken down into two skills: self-expression and effective listening. Good communicators are able to both give and follow clear directions, for example. The way a message is communicated dictates how it lands on a listener’s ear. Messages that are respectful and judgment-free and come from a collaborative stance will always be better received than those that ignore or are insensitive to a coworker.
You can probe for good communication skills in an interview in a number of ways. Ask candidates to recount an incident where their communication skills had a positive effect in the workplace. Ask them whether they proactively work on improving their communication skills. You might also inquire how their style of communication has changed over the years. Finally, ask them how they approach communicating bad news. That’s one of the toughest communications challenges any of us face.
2. Time management skills
Naturally, workers who know how to manage their time successfully are more productive and contribute more to your bottom line. Those who don’t? They can wreak havoc on any project they’re assigned to. It’s not just the last minute rush to complete a task that matters. It’s the frustration other team members assigned to the task feel when one person turns a timeline upside down. Poor time managers don’t mean to be obstructive. But to other team members responsible for meeting a deadline, they sure do look that way.
So let’s say you only have an hour to interview a candidate. How can you assess how well he or she manages time? It’s not easy. But you can ask some questions that start to get at the heart of the matter. The best questions are those that aren’t just theoretical, but rather give you insight into how a candidate behaves in real workplace situations.
Do candidates use time management tools to stay on top of assignments? Do they have experience using collaborative calendar apps? Which ones? And do they like using them or resent them? You can also ask candidates to describe the most horrendous deadline they ever met. How did they get through it? You might also probe around the candidate’s attitude toward taking breaks. Perhaps counterintuitively, research demonstrates that scheduling regular breaks makes workers more productive.
Keep in mind that you can also evaluate a candidate’s time management skills based on how they use the time you spend together. Does the candidate bring his or her own agenda, either formally or informally, to the meeting? Does he or she ask direct, purposeful questions? Are his or her answers to your questions well-organized, as well?
3. Interpersonal skills
You can be very empathetic and still leave someone cold. You can have a heart of gold that nobody ever sees. What’s inside us isn’t guaranteed to come across in the workplace. That’s where interpersonal skills come in.
Interpersonal and communication skills are intertwined, but they are distinct from one another. You need good communication skills to make a message clear and comprehensible. Interpersonal skills make people more receptive to your message. Interpersonal skills connect the message originator and the message recipient and help them come to a mutual understanding.
Arguably, interpersonal skills are more important than ever, now that we commonly communicate digitally and don’t spend as much time face-to-face. Assessing a candidate’s interpersonal skills can be tricky. Experienced job hunters bring their best face to an interview. But turning on the charm doesn’t necessarily signify strong interpersonal skills. That’s why many HR pros turn to personality and other candidate skills testing to get a clearer picture of candidates’ interpersonal skills.
But there are some questions you can ask during an interview to get to the heart of interpersonal skills. Try asking candidates to describe a situation where they didn’t like another teammate but still managed to work successfully with them. Or ask them about the best working relationships they’ve had: what made them so. You can also assess interpersonal skills by noting how candidates communicate non-verbally. Do they maintain good eye contact and call you by name when they’re speaking to you? Do they lean into a conversation physically or do they assume defensive body postures like huddling into themselves or crossing their arms?
4. Organizational skills
Strong organizational skills are an important asset. They benefit candidates regardless of whether they’re working alone or on a team. Well-organized people manage their time more effectively.They know how to set goals and develop strategies for meeting them.
When working in groups, well-organized people help keep projects on track and contribute to team morale. The most organized candidates will even develop systems that can help keep others more organized.
To get a sense of how well organized candidates are, you can ask some very straightforward questions, such as what’s the first thing you do when you arrive at work? How do you organize or reorganize your time? Do you make daily to-do lists? How do you prioritize your tasks? Are you deadline-driven? What do you do if you find yourself behind?
5. Leadership skills
Leadership skills aren’t just important for employees who supervise others. Leadership skills count at every level of your organization.
There are many leadership styles and your company culture may be geared towards one or another. But a mix of leadership styles can also be effective. While you may not want to promote an authoritarian leadership style at all times — that’s generally considered destructive to team morale and makes employees feel less-than-import or even powerless — the style can be useful when a fast, critical decision needs to be made. You can then rally your team to support your decision quickly in their day-to-day duties. To be effective, it’s incumbent upon the team leader to provide specific, time-limited instruction.
Democratic leadership can boost employee engagement. Service leadership puts the employee first and casts the leader in the role of catalyst: what can you do to ensure your team has the tools to succeed? If you’re hiring for a role that involves managing a team, you can ask candidates directly about their leadership style. You can also ask how they act when a team member’s performance isn’t up to snuff.
If a role doesn’t require managing others, you should still look for leadership skills in prospective employees. For one thing, that’s a good strategy for succession planning. You want to hire employees you think have the skills to rise to the top. Employees who are comfortable sharing their ideas are often excellent change agents. Leadership skills in non-supervising employees may express themselves differently so the questions you ask won’t be the same ones you ask of a potential manager. You might ask candidates to describe a situation where they contributed an idea that led to a positive change, or how they support new team members. Do they take the time to coach them? You can also ask whether they aspire to leading a team and how they’re developing themselves to take on that new challenge.
6. Collaboration skills
When teams work together, they bring out the best in each other. Collaboration spreads knowledge across your organization: it’s like a job skills multiplier. And it increases the chances that new ideas will get a hearing. It also lends efficiency to your organization.
Some employees are more comfortable collaborating than others. Sometimes it comes down to temperament. Some people are simply more outgoing than others. That’s not to say you should only hire extroverts. But it is critical that you understand that collaboration is essential to an organization’s success.
To assess how well candidates collaborate with others, you might start by asking whether they prefer working independently or with teams. Then ask them to recall a time when collaboration led to great results and describe their role in the collaborative process. You might also talk about compromise: can you recall a time when you had to compromise when working with a team? How did that make you feel?
7. Technical skills
When you’re assessing candidates’ technical skills, you probably want to check for your company’s must-haves first. For some, that’s Salesforce. When you’re hiring a graphic designer, it may be critical that a candidate demonstrate expertise with the Adobe suite. This is one instance when you might want to make a list of job skills that you consider make-or-breaks for success in a particular role. Walk through the list directly and ask candidates to describe their skill level as expert, competent or beginner. A candidate who isn’t up to speed with the basics is going to take a lot longer to train — and that increases the cost of hiring for you.
But technology is ever-evolving. Consider how many invitations you get to update your favorite apps to the next version. Companies often ask employees to start using new software programs for project management, benefits, or even payroll management. Technical skills are closely related to the ability to roll comfortably with changes. So you may want to probe about managing change during your interview.
8. Problem-solving skills
Ah, problems. Every business has them. But when you’re interviewing candidates, you’re probably not looking for the ability to solve the big ones all by themselves. Instead, you’re assessing how they manage the myriad small challenges they come across in any given work week. A team member is out sick and can’t give a presentation. The manufacturer of a product you need for a photo shoot can’t get it to you on time. You thought you had a month to finish a project, but the deadline has been moved up by two weeks. You’ll want to learn how candidates respond to these situations and bring them to successful resolution.
One of the best ways to assess candidates’ problem-solving abilities is to challenge them on the spot, as in, “Here’s the situation. What would you do?” Whether candidates come to the “right” answer is less important than the mental process they go through to solve the problem. You might also pick up some clues as to how well they demonstrate other important skills like time management and interpersonal skills.
Candidates who are good at problem-solving are able to operate more independently. But employees should also be able to distinguish between situations they can handle on their own and those that may require getting advice from others, including their supervisors.
9. Multitasking skills
It’s rare for an employee to wear just one hat. Your office’s receptionist may also be in charge of scheduling executive meetings, for example. And job responsibilities don’t happen sequentially. They’re present in aggregate, every moment of the day. Multitasking is the ability to manage many, sometimes conflicting priorities. The more complicated a role, the more critical multitasking skills become. So how do you evaluate a candidate’s multitasking skills in an interview?
To start out, you can ask them about the responsibilities they juggle in their current role or previous positions they’ve held. How often are they called upon to multitask? What kinds of tasks are they asked to perform simultaneously? How do they decide which tasks need to be done first? (Hint: it shouldn’t be taking care of the loudest shouter first.)
Multitasking requires the ability to think about or do two things at once. To assess multitasking skills, some employers ask candidates to participate in a multitasking simulation. Simulations can be as simple as asking a candidate to continue answering questions while they’re also reading something. Taking notes while watching a presentation is another example of multitasking so you might ask candidates to try doing that on the spot.
10. Decision-making skills
Some people consider decision-making skills a separate animal, but sometimes good decision-making comes down to a constellation of skills we’ve already talked about. Collaboration, for example, is useful when it comes to gathering the data you need to make the right decision. Organizational skills come into play when developing a framework for how to address making a decision. Multitasking is important when you’re trying to keep the priorities of multiple stakeholders in mind. The best decisions take your entire organization into account — even if they don’t make everyone happy.
To assess whether candidates have good decision-making skills, you might start by asking them to describe their decision-making process. A simple question like, “How do you approach decision making?” or “Do you make quick decisions?” can get the ball rolling. You might next move on to more specific decision-making experience with questions like “Have you ever had to make a decision during a crisis?” and “Have you ever had to make an unpopular decision?”
You can also ask about a candidate’s approach to different types of decisions that are relevant to the role you’re seeking to fill, such as setting budgets, purchasing products or hiring new employees. Finally, you can test candidates’ decision-making prowess by asking hypothetical questions: outline a situation that requires a decision and ask them what path they’d recommend. They may not make the right decision from your perspective, but it will give you insight into the process they go through to make a decision.
Tips for attracting skilled talent
Unemployment is low and the job market is very competitive right now. Attracting top candidates, not surprisingly, is more challenging under these circumstances. But there are plenty of simple ways to put your best corporate foot forward.
- Make sure the salary you offer is competitive with other employers in your industry. It’s not all about the money for candidates — but honestly, much of it is.
- When it comes to benefits, pay attention to the trends. Study the research on what candidates value most in a benefits package.
- With healthcare costs soaring, having an excellent employee health insurance plan is very attractive. Your healthcare plan can make or break a candidate’s decision to accept your offer. Some candidates will jump at the opportunity to work for a company that doesn’t require employee contributions to its healthcare plan.
- Benefits that acknowledge employees have lives outside or work are also very persuasive. That means flexible work hours — people want to know they’ll have time to take their kids to the doctor or pick up a relative at the airport.
- The global pandemic gave many employees a taste of what it’s like to work from home — and they gobbled it up. Offering candidates the opportunity to work from home at least part of the time might get your offer on candidates’ short list.
- Be respectful of candidates’ time. Don’t schedule an interview and then cancel it. Some employers are guilty of serial cancellation and that doesn’t sit well with candidates. It signals that you don’t value them right out of the gate.
- When candidates come to your office, remember that they’re guests. Treat them as you would a customer coming to visit. Attend to their comfort. Small signals mean a lot, such as meeting them personally — and warmly — in your reception area. Have coffee or water bottles on the conference table. And for goodness sake, put your cell phone on silent for the entire time you spend together.
- Get organized for your interview. Review your must-cover topics before you sit down with a candidate. Give candidates time to respond to questions and ask questions of their own. If you have a hard stop, let the candidate know at the outset of your interview so they have time to get their questions answered, too.
- Remember that it’s not just the candidate who’s selling you on his or her qualifications — it’s your job to sell your organization, too. What do you love about working for your company? Be sure to let candidates know. If you make value statements, such as “we really care about our employees”, be prepared to support the claim with specific examples. If you’re an HR leader, be aware that employees do a lot of research before joining a company and managing your online reputation is essential. And why not ask directly, “What do you value most in an employer?” Let the candidate’s answer guide what information you share during the interview.
Interview questions to ask candidates about their skills
We’ve provided many examples of job questions to ask potential employees that relate to some of the most powerful skills candidates can bring to your company. But there are some general open-ended questions that many successful recruiters rely on, too. These include:
- What skills do you bring to the job?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Why do you want to work for this company?
- What is your greatest accomplishment?
- How comfortable are you with technology?
- How do you cope with change?
- Where do you want to be in five years?
Why look for job seekers with strong strategic thinking skills?
Strategic thinking is often viewed as the granddaddy of all job skills. People who can see — and affect — the big picture contribute more to a company than those who can only see a few steps in front of them.
Strategic thinking is a valuable skill at every level of your organization. Everyone has the potential to improve processes and productivity if they can frame challenges in a rational way. Strategic thinkers don’t just live in the present: they can reflect on mistakes made in the past and see possibilities in the future. They can create a path towards positive change and then evaluate whether a strategy is working or not.
How can you pick a strategic thinker out of the crowd? Start a discussion about strategy. You can start out with the benign-enough question: “Do you play strategy games?” Or you can ask candidates for their definition of strategy. You might wind up debating the meaning of strategy: there are many different definitions. Then you can get more specific. Ask candidates how they’ve contributed to strategy development, even when on the football field.
Is it worth hiring job seekers with fewer skills and experience?
You’ll find as many different answers to that question as you will hiring managers. Each one will probably have a story to tell, be it a fairy tale or tragedy.
Some hiring managers get a kick out of coaching. (Those are the ones you want to keep, by the way.) They enjoy the process of working with less experienced team members. They love a good diamond-in-the-rough. For the sake of engagement, it’s generally a good idea to hire people who have room to grow in their positions. And hiring people with fewer skills is typically less expensive.
Hiring overqualified candidates comes with its own risks, including higher turnover and recruiting expenses and an expectation on the candidate’s part for a quick promotion and big salary bumps. But it can sometimes be a smart move, for example when you have a lot to accomplish quickly or have limited funds to invest in training.
Summary of Miami Herald’s skills you should look for in job candidates
All skills aren’t equal. Focusing on these transferable skills during the candidate evaluation process can improve your chances of hiring the most qualified individuals to join your company:
- Communication skills
- Time management skills
- Interpersonal skills
- Organizational skills
- Leadership skills
- Collaboration skills
- Technical skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Multitasking skills
- Decision-making skills