Technical Skills are not more important than 10% in Job Interviews.

 

You are a Job seeker or you are invited to a job interview?

Perfect! It means that you have the basic knowledge and technical skills, required for the job. But the job interview is usually a competition that is not really about testing your technical skills. It is mostly to check other things.

According to Prof. Javad Zarbakhsh, employers are not really worried about best technical skills in job interviews. Most of the technical skills can be learnt; many need to be updated.

When it comes to job interviews and choosing the best candidates, there are 4 major assets to be analyzed by employers, Prof. Zarbakhsh added: “Values, Interests, Personalities and Skills”.

 

Important Values, Personalities and soft skills for Job Seekers

• Honesty
• Self Disipline
• Integrity
• Strong work ethic
• Self motivated
• Analytical thinking
• Problem Solving
• High energy/positive attitude
• Emotional intelligence
• Team player

 

Hiring tips and strategies to Identify Soft Skills

• Include the required soft skills and personalities into job description and requirements. If you cannot write it in job description or you prefer not to write it in description, feel free to apply the criteria in interviews.
• If you are forced to hire without considering the required soft skills, then it needs to be applied as soon as possible; that it the first day of employment. Make sure you have a detailed plan and serious discussion on the required values to be followed.
• Identify the talents in your training programs. Get in contacts with university professors and ask for talent with specific soft skills combined with required technical skills
• Promote your products with your highest values and skills. Smart, intelligence, goal oriented, team etc.
• Self discipline is the key. Pay attention to signals and red flags. When a professor recommends this student does not attend group meetings, does not fully finish the assignments, or a job candidates who arrives too late at interview day. These are all signs for you “Do not hire this person!”
• It is totally ok for ask redundant questions in interviews to identify whether the candidates answer the questions with honesty or just try to answer the questions to please you. Pay attention to conflicting and paradoxical answers.
• Get help from a professional. It is totally ok to invite an external evaluator to help you with the selection criteria, interviewing and decision making.