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Rachel Llanes
18 November 2025
Traditional interview questions fail to predict real-world performance because they measure what candidates can articulate, not what they can actually do. The ability to describe past successes tells you nothing about how someone handles ambiguity, collaborates under stress, or adapts when priorities shift — the soft skills that separate high performers from costly mis-hires.
Leaders are changing their approach. Instead of relying on predictable questions, they're using crisis simulations, team-based exercises, reversed interviews, and real-world observations to see how candidates actually perform under pressure. These 12 proven strategies reveal the emotional intelligence, adaptability, and composure that drive operational excellence.
The typical working day for most employees will involve unexpected challenges that cause them to think on their feet, so it seems counterintuitive to create an interview environment that's undermined by predictable questions.
Traditional interviews take the form of verbal assessments where candidates are tasked with responding to certain areas of concern about their resumes and their capabilities to tackle their daily job roles with transferable skills. While these considerations are important, soft skills may only emerge when candidates are tasked with relying on their instincts.
This means that asking more left-field questions can be a good test of their ability to communicate clearly when in unpredictable situations. Asking a question like 'If you were an animal, what would you be?' has become a popular question to look for visible cues for soft skills, but using more miscellaneous questions that aren't intrusive is an effective way to assess soft skills like the ability to communicate within teams.
Matthew Crook, General Manager, PeopleHR
We assess listening skills through paired interviews where candidates ask rather than answer first. Their questions reveal depth of understanding, preparation, and empathy effortlessly. Leaders who listen before speaking signal maturity rare among early-stage professionals. Observation of attentiveness instinctively shows whether dialogue feels transactional or relational. True communicators prioritise connection over presentation within limited conversational windows.
This reversal challenges expectations, surfacing personality beyond polished rehearsed narratives instantly. It builds respect by placing focus on mutual curiosity rather than evaluation. Those able to sustain dialogue through inquiry naturally demonstrate collaborative instincts. We hire individuals whose curiosity fuels trust before self-promotion emerges. Listening remains the purest evidence of leadership competence across disciplines universally.
Marc Bishop, Director, Wytlabs
The most accurate representation of an individual's soft skills is through live group problem-solving sessions at the end of the hiring process. A realistic, actual business project scenario with partial information, and changing priorities is presented, and I evaluate how each candidate uses their communication, adaptability and collaboration with other team members. This reveals true behavior when there is some pressure (such as conflict resolution), and who will work effectively in teams and allow other team members to contribute. In this type of situation, I have seen reserved applicants exhibit superior leadership, and very confident applicants show difficulty in listening.
In a traditional interview, the interviewer has too much structure and has been prepped for the exact same questions over and over again, so it is hard to determine how the applicant will react when changes are made to the plans. When candidates are required to brainstorm solutions, use creative thinking, and problem solve in a collaborative manner to complete an open ended task, their patterns of empathy, humility and critical thinking are exposed. This allows me to assess who can provide calm and clear direction, which typically defines who will ultimately succeed in the long term in a project based environment.
Yad Senapathy, Founder & CEO, Project Management Training Institute (PMTI)
I believe that conventional interviews are absolutely ineffective in terms of observing the actual performance of a person under the pressure. On my part we have a 30 minute client crisis test. We issue a loan file to the candidates and say, here is the investment loan of 900,000 dollars and the valuation of the loan just found itself 100,000 short the night before the settlement of the loan. They are assigned to call me immediately, and I am the high net worth client who is completely panicked.
Frankly speaking, I do not need any other tests than this one does. To me, textbook answers are useless at that time. I observe how they can receive the panic of the client without complicating the situation. I will have to check whether they are able to guard the relationship and at the same time, work out a 3 point recovery plan. It is this single test that separates that 1 in 10 applicants who actually work in chaos, and the 9 who just read off the paper.
Austin Rulfs, Founder & SME Property Investor, Zanda Wealth
What's worked well for us is using team-based interviews. Instead of a one-on-one conversation, we bring candidates into a small group discussion with employees from different departments. It's not about putting anyone on the spot—it's about seeing how they listen, contribute, and respond to different personalities. You can tell right away whether someone is respectful, adaptable, and comfortable collaborating, all soft skills we value highly in our company.
This setup reveals things a traditional interview can't. When candidates interact naturally with our team, we see their communication style, empathy, and even how they handle a bit of pressure. Some people light up in group settings because they're team-oriented by nature, while others show they prefer working more independently. Either way, it helps us make better hiring decisions and ensures the person we bring on fits not just the job, but the culture we've worked hard to build.
Tony Ragan, President, Absolute Pest Management
The most successful soft skills assessment I have employed involves real-time teamwork activities which take place without preparation or scripting. I place candidates into mini projects which require feedback handling and unclear situations while allowing things to become slightly disorganized. We tested one candidate by providing him with conflicting directions from two team members to observe his reaction between freezing and seeking clarification. The top candidates remained composed during challenging situations by asking precise questions while they restored project direction through natural team involvement.
The way candidates handle unexpected situations and stressful moments remains hidden during standard interview procedures. The high-pressure situation exposes a person's emotional intelligence and their ability to adapt and their ego strength more effectively than any personality assessment.
Vincent Carrié, CEO, Purple Media
At LAXcar, I have regular exercises with applicants, and since the recruiting takes place with my team of chauffeurs, I often experience a fictional incident where the flight is delayed at the last moment, so the client's schedule is ruined. To maintain and correct the situation, the candidate must speak to the dispatcher, change the plan for the meeting, and calm the client in less than a minute.
One candidate impressed me when she proactively called the client to inform them of the new arrival gate and ETA respectfully and calmly, and at the same time, organized a backup vehicle. This act portrayed initiative, empathy, and composure under extreme stress. These micro-moments are always missed in traditional interviews. This real-life test evaluates how people act and conduct themselves amid chaos and in luxury transportation.
Arsen Misakyan, CEO and Founder, LAXcar
We had candidates do a group brainstorm, and that's way more revealing than any one-on-one interview. One person was great at pulling the quieter people into the conversation. They'd turn to someone who hadn't spoken and ask a direct question, and suddenly the ideas started flowing. You just don't see that ability to get everyone comfortable in a standard interview.
Will Melton, CEO, Xponent21
With the exception of interpersonal skills, psychometric assessments are substantially better measures of soft skills than interviews.
In reality, most soft skills are intrapersonal, not interpersonal. Work ethic, resilience, integrity, these characteristics can't be expressed verbally and thus can't be measured using interviews.
Sure, you can ask questions about them, but it's the candidates with interpersonal skills who perform best. That doesn't mean they actually have those soft skills, it just means they can speak convincingly about them, very different skills.
Psychometric assessments, however, are designed specifically to measure soft skills without the interference of interpersonal skills and charisma.
That's not to say that interviews (and interpersonal skills) aren't important; they are just the wrong tool for the job. Indeed, doing both gives you the best of both worlds, showing what we call "incremental validity" over each other.
But ultimately, organizations must decouple having soft skills from being able to convince people that they have soft skills. Once you cease conflating the two, psychometrics become the most viable soft skills assessment tool.
Ben Schwencke, Chief Psychologist, Test Partnership
I will often ask questions like "what do you contribute most as a team member, outside of the actual work you are doing?" This gives them a chance to talk about their soft skills - maybe they are a good leader, or they are really creative, or they're able to step in and help with whatever is needed, or something else. I think this kind of question gives great insight into unique skills they have that they typically don't have listed on their resume.
Eli Zimmer, Director of Operations, Luxaire HVAC Services
The best technique I have employed to test soft skills when hiring is by providing the candidates with a chaotic client problem to solve aloud as I intentionally alter the requirements throughout the conversation to make the candidate experience some pressure and introduce a new strategy. I introduce situations when a client requests first-page positioning within two weeks and has significant technical problems, and halfway during their explanation, I introduce new nuances, such as the client halving the budget or disclosing that they require the results before a significant product release, and the candidates will be required to change their communication approach and style on the fly.
The method derives the information that standard interviews cannot provide since it demonstrates how a person can think under pressure instead of the ability to memorize narratives of previous achievements. People who present themselves as having an impressive resume often have to freeze or get defensive when the solution that first worked is no longer effective and others will immediately begin asking questions about what is of most interest to the client and change their advice accordingly, and observing that variation tells me more about their ability to solve problems and their level of emotional intelligence than any worded response ever would.
Caleb Johnstone, SEO Director, Paperstack
I like to ask hypothetical questions. They'll vary depending on the persona and what specific role they are interviewing for, but usually they have an angle of trying to gain insight into their soft skills. I might ask how they would handle a particular situation as a team leader, for example, or how they would make use of their unique strengths to handle a certain problem. Hypothetical questions are a great way to get really honest answers from candidates since they can't as easily prepare for them.
Jeremy Yamaguchi, CEO, Cabana
The insights shared by hiring leaders highlight several consistent themes about evaluating soft skills effectively.
1. Real behavior is a more reliable indicator than prepared answers.
Traditional interviews often measure presentation skills rather than actual soft skills. Approaches like crisis simulations, shadowing, and real-time group work reveal how candidates think, react, and communicate in situations that mirror real workplace demands.
2. Pressure and ambiguity expose core competencies.
When expectations shift or information changes, candidates show their true adaptability, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving approach. These methods provide clearer insight into how someone will behave in high-stakes or fast-moving operational settings.
3. Collaboration and communication are best observed in group settings.
Team-based interviews, group problem-solving, and collaborative exercises highlight listening skills, conflict resolution, and the ability to work with different personalities.
4. Alternative interview formats uncover hidden strengths.
Reversed interviews, hypothetical scenarios, and left-field questions help hiring managers see curiosity, self-awareness, and thought process. These approaches provide a fuller picture of a candidate’s interpersonal style and leadership potential.
5. Objective tools strengthen subjective impressions.
Psychometric assessments and structured scorecards add consistency and remove bias, especially for skills like resilience, integrity, and work ethic that are difficult to measure verbally.
To build a consistent evaluation process, soft-skills screening should start at the resume stage and continue through the interview. For a deeper look at early-stage assessment, see our guide on identifying soft-skills signals in resumes before the interview.
If you're building operations teams that can handle complexity and ambiguity, our specialized recruiters understand how to assess these competencies. As former supply chain and operations professionals ourselves, we know which soft skills actually matter and how to identify candidates who possess them.
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