Two Quick Thoughts
We often think of soft skills as being synonymous with interpersonal skills. However soft skills can also be those personal attributes that help us do our jobs more efficiently. When interviewing technical candidates it is easy to overlook the importance of assessing a candidate’s soft skills. Here are a couple of my favorite interview questions that can help in this area.
Question One - “Tell me about a time when things didn’t go well for you on a project or assignment”. Listening to how the candidate answers the question is as important, if not more so, than the answer itself. The key to this question can be summed up in a single word - Ownership.
If during his or her answer the candidate takes personal ownership for what went wrong rather than assigning blame or making excuses, they often turn out to be an employee who is able to admit when they have made a mistake and personally invests themselves in their work. These type of soft skills are important to the health and cohesiveness of a team. Even better, when the candidate’s answer includes what they did to correct the issue, or what they now recognize they should have done in hindsight, then you are interviewing someone who learns from their mistakes and that can be a great trait, since none of us are perfect all the time.
Question Two - “How do you keep yourself organized and productive when you have to work on lots of different but equally important tasks”? In the fast paced world of EDI there are lots of different priorities calling for our attention. Trading partner requests, stakeholder needs, deadline demands, and daily support of systems that can grow in volume and complexity over time. Understanding how someone prioritizes the tasks, issues, and demands inherent in a fast paced EDI environment can provide an important glimpse into their ability to juggle the responsibilities of the role for which they are interviewing.
There are no perfect answers for these two questions because each person, scenario, and environment is different. But you can gain valuable insight into how someone might think through and approach challenges once they are on the job by listening to how they answer the question, rather than merely what they say.
Do you need help with challenging EDI projects, or could your team benefit by leveraging a professionally vetted and proven EDI consultant? If so, contact a Remedi representative to learn more about what makes our talent selection process different.
