Soft Skill Interview Questions For Developers

Tell Me About When You Gave Negative Feedback To A Colleague

Soft Skills – Cracking Interviews

This question enables the hiring manager to find out your ability to communicate clearly, directly and in an empathic manner.

Example:”In my previous job, one of my team members was constantly underperforming. Before calling them for a face-to-face meeting, I ensured my emotions were under control. This helped me provide constructive feedback on their workplace behaviour, not on their personality. While talking to him, I ensured I stayed calm and specific and allowed the team member to respond. We collectively developed an action plan to help him meet his performance goals.”

Mention A Situation Where You Overcame A Challenge

Associated skill: Ability to resolve problems

This question is frequently asked during interviews. It helps judge your ability to solve problems and perseverance at your workplace.

How to answer

Answering this question must not be difficult as a person comes across several bottlenecks during their career.

Best answer

I was a member of the marketing team and our redesigned website was scheduled to launch at the end of the next quarter. The designers and developers were not finalizing things causing a delay in the project.

At this point, I decided to take matters into my hands and gathered everyone in the same room to discuss challenges and goals. After listening to each other, everyone reached a compromise, and the website was completed right on time.

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Where Do You See Yourself In The Next Five Years

This is a standard question often asked in software developer interviews, sometimes as a replacement to the previous question, or sometimes to drill down further. It is directed to understand if you will be a good fit for the position.

Follow the same advice from the last interview question, of course being mindful of the 5-year mark in particular.

Example: I am passionate about working as a software developer and making a lifelong career out of it. In the next five years, I hope to learn more about back-end development to allow me to become a well-rounded full-stack engineer.

Soft Skills Interview Questions And Answers To Prepare

Top 10 IT Soft Skills That Employers Look For in 2020

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Soft skills are incredibly valuable in all industries, roles and workplaces and these skills enable you to be a productive and communicative team member. Understanding how to highlight your soft skills during an interview can help you impress hiring managers and get hired for a desirable job role. Interview questions on your soft skills help you show your personality traits that are useful in the workplace. In this article, we share eight soft skills interview questions and answers and provide sample answers to help you prepare for your upcoming interview.

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Have You Ever Been In A Situation When Everything Did Not Go According To Plan How Did You React And What Was The Outcome

This helps evaluate soft skills such as the leadership qualities of the candidate. Keep in mind that leadership is not all about managing others. Its also about being a strong example to other people in the organization. You want to hire an applicant who can demonstrate the ability to look after and inspire their colleagues. Mistakes are bound to happen in any work environment, and you want someone who is proactive with solutions. You should also check for other soft skills, like communication, when testing the leadership trait.

Emotional Intelligence In An Interview

Emotional intelligence is interrelated with all other soft skills. Its so much easier to lead a team, to cooperate effectively with your colleagues, or to find right words in a tense meeting, once you understand your emotions and emotions of other people who share the situation with you.

But I have some bad news for you: unless you are emotionally intelligent, you may find it hard to assess the emotional intelligence of other people, the job seekers. Some questions may help you, but they wont guarantee a good judgment, since some job seekers may simply pretend . Lets have a look at the questions:

Describe a conflict you had with one of your colleagues. Observe how they talk about the conflict, if they mention emotions they experienced, and understanding for the emotions of the other conflict party.
How will you deal with a frustrated client? An emotionally intelligent person will try to understand the reason of clients anger. They will stay calm and try to address the problem without getting involved emotionally.
What is your attitude to constructive criticism?
Talk about the most negative experience from your last job.

Other ways of assessing someones emotional intelligence

Just like with other soft skills, simply observing the persons reactions and body language will help you to learn something about their emotional intelligence.

All these things will help you to get some idea. Alternative you can opt for a professional tests, such as MSCEIT.

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Tell Me About A Time You Had To Give A Presentation

IT plays a strategic role in many companies, and your web developer may be asked to attend meetings and provide progress reports to leadership. Good candidates dont have to be extroverts, just comfortable speaking in front of others. Follow up by asking how applicants dealt with questions from the audience and what they learned from the overall experience.

How To Use The Star Method To Prepare For Soft Skill Interview Questions

IT Soft Skills: Job Interviewing Part 1

Hiring managers like to ask soft skills interview questions because they’re looking for a well-rounded candidate that can adapt to different situations. Successful job candidates use the STAR interview method to present that they’re the right fit for the job. As a candidate, it’s important to familiarise yourself with this method to communicate effectively during an interview:

Discuss the situation: Set the context of the story by introducing a situation or challenge that you faced at work or school.

Describe the task: Describe how the situation relates to you and the goal that’s to be accomplished.

Explain the actions you took: Explain the steps you took to overcome the challenge. Focus most of your attention on this step as it directly links to your problem-solving abilities and how you utilised your skills to adapt to the situation.

Describe the result: Explain and try to quantify your success. Also, explain how solving the situation was beneficial for your self-improvement.

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Share An Experience Where The Expected Results Went Against Expectations What Was Your Approach And How Did You Adapt To This Change

As a wedding planner, I ensure everything runs according to plan. I dont leave anything to chance and follow the couples wishes to the letter. So for this particular wedding, I was handling, I booked the venue in good time, paid a deposit for fresh white roses as per the brides wishes, and ensured the décor matched the days theme. Despite all the preparations, there was a heavy downpour on the eve of the wedding, making it impossible to set up the venue.

After consultations with the couple, we moved the event to one of the nearby hotels and quickly set up the décor in the hotels ballroom. Though there was much to be done, we managed to set everything up on time. Networking and building relationships can make a significant difference when faced with a crisis. I believe that my ability to solve problems in real-time makes me an asset that your company needs for this role.

Why Did You Apply For This Job

If you read the job description and researched the company, this interview question should be a breeze. Explain aspects of the job description or company that appealed to you, like the opportunity to work in a collaborative atmosphere or with a group that strives to produce the highest quality of work.

Employers are looking for someone who doesnt mention that they were applying for every job out there because they were desperate or someone who didnt even read the job description. While you want to have a good answer, the takeaway here is to say something about the job that shows you are actually interested.

Relevant Skills Interview Questions

Some questions will focus on other, non-technical skills required of software engineers. These skills range from problem-solving to logic to analytical thinking.

Also, since most software projects happen on tight schedules, interviewers will be eager to find out how you perform under deadlines, manage your time, and communicate about setbacks and delays to project managers and team members.

Please Share With Us A Time When Your Leadership Skills Helped You In Leading A Team Amidst Challenging Circumstances

Three Questions I Ask Every Job Candidate To Test Their Soft Skills ...

Our IT department received cruel negative feedback from a long-term client, and everyone was feeling pretty downcast about the amount of effort the team had already put in.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I organized a brainstorming session where we could, review the clients revisions and ensure we were all on the same page about the requested edits.

Before the meeting, I had formed a more palatable breakdown of the clients requests and gathered relevant resources to ensure we had everything needed to begin working on those changes. Everyone left that meeting encouraged and ready to tackle the task ahead.

Have You Ever Been In A Situation Where Being Honest Landed You In Trouble

Having an honest employee is beneficial to a company in so many ways. It is crucial to evaluate soft skills, such as honesty, closely since many points of their experience or capabilities stem from whether or not they tell the truth. Recruiters tend to prefer frankness and honesty in their new employees. Honest employees are typically hard workers and give their all when executing their duties in the organization. An honest employee also acknowledges his or her limitations and always strives to improve.

How Do You Feel About Working In A Team Environment

Employers might ask teamwork and collaboration skills-related questions to know about your comfort level working in a team environment. When answering this question, it is essential to provide examples of your experience of collaborating with others. It helps them understand your preference for team collaboration.

Example:”In my last job role, I worked as a social media strategist. I enjoy working as a team because I find it more engaging and thriving at work. When I know I have a team that supports me, I become confident in completing my work and job duties. Often, I also like to take out some time during my workday to work independently. To ensure I achieved organisational goals, my team and I met to collaborate in the morning. We then worked independently in the afternoon to complete our team’s goal.”

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A Few Soft Skills Interview Questions To Get To Know The Candidate

For job interviews to fill a technical role it’s obvious that the questions needs to be, well, technicals, with focus on the hard skills questions aiming to know the candidate’s knowledge in a specific framework, code language, software, etcetera.

But the attitude is very very very… very much… important. I said it before:

Everybody has access to the same documentation, to the same in-house training programs, to the same software, to everybody’s code, to basically the same people to ask questions and to learn from… and what’s set the difference between someone progressing in his or her line of work and someone stuck is the personality each developer has.

Soft skills related questions allow you to get to know the human you are interviewing, having in mind that you’ll share with that person more than some lines of code if you ended up offering the job.

It also humanise the interview. If you pay attention people are usually tense answering the technical questions but when you throw in a soft skills one candidates relax and enjoy the conversation created around that question.

At my current job we have a few very good soft skills questions I would like to share now in case you find them useful .

Whats The Best Approach For Effective Communication At The Workplace

Soft skills Tutorials|| Interview Prepartion by Sophi Benjamin

Ive learned that integrating a software application that enhances interaction is the best way to improve communication at work. Many project management software come with features that enhance collaboration and one-on-one interaction. These features help organize meetings, schedule emails and improve inter-departmental communication.

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Next Steps After A Coding Challenge: What Does A Good Technical Interview Look Like

Technical interviews are similar in structure to the non-technical versions but with just a few added steps. To conduct the best technical interview possible, youll need to:

Set clear expectations for the candidate, such as time and place, and lay out the entire interview process.

Include a pre-recorded video interview. Some companies are still a bit old-fashioned regarding pre-recorded interviews. But adding video is an easy way to keep track of who youve spoken to, their answers, and how they responded to questions. Its also a convenient method for distributing your screening questions at scale and reducing time wasted in bad interviews.

Always be prepared. Make sure that the interviewer and interviewee have working webcams, there is a quiet space for you to conduct the interview, and that the internet connection is stable.

Plan out your technical questions in advance, and remember to ask all of them. Sticking to a structured interview format will help you draw a fair and accurate shortlist of top candidates.

Clearly state what the next step of the interview process will be, including the type of coding challenges you will issue the candidate.

What Types Of Development Projects Have You Worked On In Your Past Jobs

The interviewer may wish to assess your specialisation and expertise. In your response, you can give an answer that relates to the position. Mention any software development projects that have given you experience and expertise to handle the responsibilities of this job.

Example answer:”In my last two roles, I focused on improving applications that manage transactions and interact with relational database systems. I developed all the code to control data queries, lookups and indexing of the data. In collaboration with other programmers, I also designed the interface, managed the backend database and developed some application features. The websites I have worked on so far are e-commerce sites wanted to conduct sales and carry out website transactions. It is similar to what this job requires.”

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Tell Us About Something You Were Asked To Do That You Have Never Done Before How Did You React And What Did You Learn

This question is meant to test the adaptability of the candidate. An applicant who demonstrates this trait can help the company grow. Such a candidate will stay calm under pressure and is willing to try out new tools and techniques when executing his or her duties. They are also likely to come up with effective solutions when problems arise. Theyll quickly accept new team members and adapt to different working styles when required.

Why Should We Hire You

I have a wealth of experience in this role as I have long-term exposure working in a similar environment. I believe that the three years I spent developing software applications for different organizations make me an ideal candidate for this IT managerial position. Additionally, I have good coding and design skills that can help me thrive in this position.

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What Do You Think Makes A Good Manager

I like this one because it’s a chance for the candidate to talk about others, and it’s expected that they think of their current boss .

The answer will give you an idea of how the candidate works on a team structure where somebody is on a position above them. And at the same time it will hint you if the candidate will do well with the current managers at your company.

I like the answers about leadership and motivation.

Teamwork Behavioral Interview Questions

39. Tell me about a time when you worked with someone who was not completing his or her share of the work. How did you handle the situation? Did you discuss your concern with your coworker? With your manager? If yes, how did your coworker respond to your concern? What was your managers response?

40. Describe a situation where you had to work in a team that didnt get on very well. What happened? What did you do and what role did you take? How did the situation evolve?

41. Describe a team experience you found disappointing. What would you have done differently to prevent this?

42. Give me an example of working cooperatively as a team member to accomplish an important goal. What was the objective? To what extent did you interact with other project members?

43. Tell me about the most difficult situation you have had when leading a team. What happened and how did you handle it? Were you successful? What was the most important thing you did?

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