How to assess soft skills? Method + Guide - Yuzu

A term that has been very fashionable in Human Resources for the past ten years, soft skills have a much older origin... As with many innovations, it was on the side of the American Army that this term came into being in the 1960s, hence its English name.

Often translated into “soft skills” or “behavioral skills”, they are now identified as the most important skills to be evaluated by nearly 9 out of 10 recruiters (Allcoat et al, 2018).

However, the assessment of these abilities is still too often reduced to declarative during interviews.

This paradox raises the complexity of assessing soft skills and justifies the question that all recruiters, HR, managers and managers ask themselves:

How do you assess soft skills?

To answer this question, we (in addition to this article) consulted 118 specialists the evaluation of soft skills (recruiters, psychologists, HR), to carry out a comprehensive white paper on the evaluation of these very particular skills.

By downloading for free This guide you will find:

• The 3 best evaluation methods analyzed
• Feedback from 118 recruiters, psychologists and HR specialists
• A strategy that can be directly actionable

Download the HR Guide: how to assess soft skills?

In this article, we'll start by defining what soft skills are, then we'll try to understand what makes them so special in the eyes of recruitment professionals, and end with an effective strategy forAssessment.

1 - A soft skill: what is it?

This question is at least as delicate as the assessment of these skills...

Indeed, there is no precise framework for defining soft skills. They are linked to interpersonal skills and behavior.

To illustrate them, a dozen of these skills emerge very regularly, such as creativity, adaptability, communication or problem solving.

If you are interested, we have also made a Top 10 soft skills of 2024.

To simplify their understanding, they are generally opposed to hard skills, technical skills directly linked to a job such as mastering a foreign language or software.

Chez Yuzu we consider soft skills as the ability to adapt one's behavior according to the situation: knowing how to manage stress, demonstrate autonomy, put yourself in a learning situation...

2 - Why are soft skills important?

If we maintain this duality between soft and hard skills, which represent all the skills in the world of work, then the Moore's law clearly explains the specialists' preference for behavioral skills.

Computers and components are getting smaller, more powerful, and less and less expensive. Technically they are more efficient than us or they become more efficient very quickly.

On the other hand, soft skills being human skills, they have a much longer, if not infinite, lifespan. Behaviour modification is a generational, progressive thing that is not exposed to sudden innovations.

At the level of studies, while 9 out of 10 recruiters consider soft skills to be a priority, the figures linked to recruitment errors confirm this. 89% of failures (departure of the employee less than a year after joining the company) would be directly linked to behavioral skills compared to only 11% for technical skills.

What explains these failures is directly linked to our theme: it is much easier to assess technical skills such as the ability to master software than to assess a soft skill such as team spirit.

3 - How to assess soft skills?

First, soft skills are difficult to identify and assess because they are skills that can only be observed in situations.

It's hard to get a quality answer to questions like “how do you manage your stress?” or even “do you have a team spirit?” and to be based on the declarative.

Unfortunately it is still very much the norm today, so candidates are judged on their ability to sell themselves in interviews.

On the other hand, tools and methods exist, or are emerging, to assess soft skills and objectify the assessment of candidates.

Over the past 20 years, web platforms have emerged. They generally offer psychometric tests in the form of online questionnaires, which integrate personality, motivation or even reasoning and result in an analysis of soft skills.

The best offer on the market is still that of Assessment Centers, the Rolls Royces of assessment, but What is an Assessment Center ?

Assessment is considered by recruitment experts to be the most reliable assessment technique. It is a question of putting candidates in a situation through various psychometric tests and simulations.

It is an approach that is based on what candidates actually do and not on diplomas or statements.

The main disadvantages associated with Assessment Centers are logistics and their costs since it is a question of coordinating several candidates and recruiters in person.

This efficient approach is therefore mainly reserved for companies that have the means, and it seems to be becoming less and less suitable, with the digitalization of the professional world.

Image taken from a Yuzu scenario

In response to this, a new generation of actors is emerging, offering a solution combining Assessment Center methods and the agility offered by digital technology.

Discover the Yuzu model

After several years of R&D with researchers in Psychology and Neuroscience, we imagined Yuzu : one New Generation Assessment Center, specialized in the assessment of soft skills (the famous soft skills).

With Yuzu, talents are immersed in scenarios developed with the latest technologies of the Video game.

The evaluations, on the other hand, are accessible to all profiles thanks to simplified orders and cloud technologies (all you need is a computer and an internet connection to be evaluated).

Evaluate the soft skills of your candidates with Yuzu

The advantages of our solution:

• One candidate experience exceptional for boosting your employer brand;
• A solution accessible to all to ensure equal opportunities;
• A decision support tool to detect and promote interpersonal skills.

Whether it's for your recruitment process Or of internal mobility, we are transforming the assessment of Soft Skills In a moment Loud and playful.

In summary

Situational simulation is the key element in the assessment of soft skills.

Whether you carry them out in person or in a more digital process, they will allow you to concretely see the potential of the candidate in a given situation.

While practices that have been tried and tested over the years have no longer necessarily adapted to the needs of HR teams, new technological players are emerging on the same service standards, while adding a significant fun dimension for the employer brand.

To complete your analysis beyond soft skills, we have listed 3 other methods to assess the potential of candidates.

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