Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: How to Prioritize the Right Candidate Traits During the Hiring Process

When building a high-performing team, hiring managers face an essential question: Should you prioritize hard skills or soft skills in your next hire? Understanding the differences between these two skill sets and knowing how to evaluate them during interviews is key to making successful hiring decisions. Explore the nuances of hard skills vs. soft skills, and how to identify and prioritize them effectively in order to confidently decide which candidate is the best professional for the role.

Understanding the Distinction: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

Before diving into evaluation techniques and interview strategies, it’s important to define the difference between hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills refer to the technical abilities and knowledge required to perform specific job duties, while soft skills relate to how a candidate interacts, communicates, and collaborates with others. Both play a critical role in job performance, but their importance can vary depending on the position and organizational culture. Some roles require high performance with understanding of various software systems or specific skills, while other positions look for managers with great leadership and people-forward skills. Understanding the differences and nuances of each can ease the decision on which candidate to hire to expand your team.

 

What Are Hard Skills? 

Hard skills are teachable and measurable abilities acquired through education, training, or on-the-job experience. These skills are often listed in job descriptions and can be validated through certifications, degrees, or assessments. Most hard skills listed in the job description are required in order to make it to the next round of interviews as a foundational requirement. In many cases, they are specific to a particular industry or role.

 

Hard Skills Examples Across Industries

Understanding what are hard skills in the context of your industry is essential. Here are a few common hard skills examples:

• Accounting/Finance: Financial reporting, tax preparation, Excel modeling
• Marketing: SEO, Google Analytics, campaign performance analysis
• IT/Tech: Programming languages (Python, Java), network security, database management
• Healthcare: Patient care techniques, electronic health records (EHR) systems, medical coding
• Administrative: CRM systems, data entry, project management software proficiency

 

What Are Soft Skills? 

Soft skills are interpersonal and behavioral traits that determine how individuals work with others, solve problems, and adapt to different environments. These are harder to measure as there aren’t typically trainings or certifications in order to prove you have these traits. Even though these are considered intangible qualities, they are equally critical to match ahead of time for long-term success and a confident cultural fit.

 

Soft Skills Examples That Employers Value

When evaluating what are soft skills, think of qualities that influence how someone functions on a team or handles workplace challenges. Common soft skill examples include:

• Communication: Clearly conveying information, active listening
• Adaptability: Adjusting to change, managing ambiguity
• Teamwork: Collaborating with colleagues, contributing to group goals, leadership abilities
• Problem-solving: Thinking critically, developing creative solutions
• Emotional Intelligence: Demonstrating empathy, managing interpersonal relationships

 

Which Skills Should Take Priority in Your Hiring Process?

The answer often lies in the nature of the role. For highly technical roles, hard skills may be non-negotiable. However, for positions that require collaboration, leadership, or customer interaction, soft skills can be even more indicative of long-term success. In many cases, a strong balance of both is ideal.

Ask yourself:

• Can this skill be taught on the job, or must the candidate bring it with them?
• How important is teamwork or adaptability to the role?
• What does success in this role look like over time?

It’s advised that employers should consider hiring for potential when soft skills are strong, even if some hard skills can be developed through training. Soft skills tend to correlate with the personality traits that make a candidate excel in a specific role, where hard skills are required from an experience and efficiency level to start the first day on the right page.

 

Interviewing for Hard Skills: Best Practices and Questions to Ask

To assess hard skills effectively, consider the following strategies:

• Use skill assessments or technical tasks: Ask candidates to complete a real-world task that mirrors job responsibilities.
• Request portfolios or work samples: Review previous work to validate technical competency.
• Ask targeted questions:
  • “Can you walk me through your process for [specific task]?”
  • “What tools or software have you used in your past roles?”
  • “How have you applied [specific hard skill] to achieve a business goal?”

These approaches help ensure that a candidate’s hard skills align with the demands of the role.

 

Interviewing for Soft Skills: Best Practices and Questions to Ask

Since soft skills are less tangible, behavioral interviews are ideal for evaluating them. Focus on open-ended questions that prompt candidates to share real examples:

• Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to guide responses.
• Encourage candidates to reflect on their leadership skills and how they best manage or collaborate with a team.
• Sample questions include:
  • “Tell me about a time you had to resolve a conflict within your team.”
  • “Describe a situation where you had to adapt quickly to a significant change.”
  • “How do you prioritize your tasks when juggling multiple deadlines?”

Observe the candidate’s communication style, emotional awareness, and ability to reflect on their experiences. The more time you spend conversing with candidates, the greater the opportunity they have to express how they best perform in their role, and whether the soft skills they possess are necessary to shine in their position.

 

Finding the Right Balance

When it comes to hard skills vs. soft skills, one doesn’t automatically trump the other. The most effective hiring decisions come from understanding which attributes will make a candidate truly valuable to your team. As a hiring manager, take time to identify what qualities matter most for success in the role—and make those a priority during interviews. With such a competitive job market, it’s important to make sure that the first person you hire for your open role is fully equipped to complete the task at hand and blend well with the team structure. The more intentional questions you ask about both hard and soft skills, the more complete picture you’ll gain of a candidate’s potential. In doing so, you set the stage for not just filling a position, but building a team that thrives.

 

Ready to Hire? Let Professional Alternatives Help You Find the Right Talent

At Professional Alternatives, we understand that hiring the right candidate goes beyond a polished resume. We specialize in evaluating both hard and soft skills to match employers with professionals who are not only qualified but also aligned with your company culture and long-term goals.

Whether you’re looking to fill a new position or restructure an existing team, we can take the stress out of hiring. Our experienced recruiters are skilled at identifying top talent who meet your technical requirements and bring the right attitude and interpersonal strengths to your team. Keep your focus on the tasks that matter for your role, and let our driven staffing professionals find the best candidates to expand your team.

Connect with our team today to get started. Let us help you find candidates with the right mix of hard skills and soft skills to elevate your organization to the next level.