What is skills-first interviewing?

A skills-first job interview uses questions evaluating how a candidate’s hard and soft skills match position needs. It’s part of a skills-first hiring process that helps you determine if candidates have the abilities, traits and competencies to succeed in the job.

Unlike traditional interviews, skills-first interviewing emphasizes demonstrated behavior, knowledge and experience over degrees or job history.

This strategy can benefit your business by:

• Increasing the number of applicants: Interviewing for skills rather than education or years of experience lets you consider a broader range of job seekers.
• Supporting an efficient process: A larger candidate pool and clear criteria help hiring teams streamline screening and interviewing.
• Bringing together varied perspectives: Considering people with different experiences and backgrounds can give your team additional approaches to solving problems.
• Aligning skills with the role: Questions tied to actual duties can help you evaluate whether a candidate has the abilities needed to perform the work.
• Reducing skills gaps: Hiring for specific abilities can help you address the skills gaps on your team.

A skills-based interview process might use a variety of evaluation tools, including skills-based interview questions, job simulations, formal assessments and reference checks.

What information can you gain from skills-based interview questions?

By asking the right skills-based interview questions, you can evaluate a candidate’s:

• Soft skills: Asking how a candidate would approach different scenarios can demonstrate their soft skills such as communication, empathy, time management and conflict resolution.
• Hard skills: Consider including questions about the technical skills involved in the job, such as coding, graphic design or financial analysis. These questions help you identify useful skills the candidate has developed through hobbies, volunteer work, training or other jobs.
• Work approach: Behavioral questions can show how a candidate organizes work, communicates and responds to job-related situations.
• Problem-solving abilities: Some skills-first interview questions ask candidates about how they’d complete a specific project or resolve a challenge. Their answers can show how they assess a situation, set priorities, create a plan and take action.

How do you develop skills-based interview questions?

Because interview time is limited, focus on questions that relate directly to the open position. A structured job interview can help you ask candidates the same core questions. Use these tips to develop them:

• Identify specific skills: Based on the job description, make a list of the hard and soft skills that will help a candidate succeed in the position. Consider asking the position’s manager or supervisor to review and add to the list. You can also use the Indeed Skills Map to help you understand the skills that are most in-demand for your job and your industry.
• Determine the purpose of each skill: Define how the new employee will use each skill on the job. A technical writer and a kindergarten teacher might both use communication skills, for example, but probably not in the same way. When you understand the purpose of each skill, you can ask more specific interview questions.
• Write questions: Develop interview questions that help you understand how the candidate’s skills might be useful in the job. If you want a project manager candidate with strong organization skills, for example, you might ask them how they’d approach a new project.
• Use open-ended questions: Try to write questions that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no.” This strategy encourages candidates to offer more details, so you can better assess their skills. You could ask them to describe their experiences or explain how they’d respond in a specific scenario.
• Include a mix of question styles and topics: Asking a variety of questions makes it easier to evaluate multiple skills. It’s also an opportunity to observe how candidates respond to changing conditions.
• Create a scoring sheet: An interview scoring sheet helps standardize the criteria you use to evaluate candidates and supports a consistent hiring process.
• Involve multiple people: Ask multiple team members to contribute skills-based interview questions, including HR, hiring managers and colleagues. Since each person has a different perspective on the role, they may suggest questions you hadn’t considered.

What topics should you cover in a skills-based interview?

A balanced skills-based interview includes questions about candidates’ hard and soft skills. Here are some skills to consider.

Hard skills

Hard skills are the technical abilities an employee uses to do their job. Candidates may develop these skills through a combination of education, practice, experience and training.

Examples of hard skills include:

• Software proficiency
• Computer programming
• Foreign language skills
• Budgeting
• Copywriting
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Database management

Some hard skills transfer across roles, while others are highly specialized. Coding may support several technology and marketing jobs, for example, while operating clinical equipment may require role-specific education, licensing and supervised training.

Questions about hard skills can be direct and specific. Ask how a candidate developed or used a skill, or present a realistic job scenario and ask them to explain their approach.

You can also ask how the candidate checks their work and troubleshoots problems. For a coding role, for example, you might ask about their debugging process.

Soft skills

Soft skills are non-technical abilities and traits, such as empathy, teamwork and critical thinking. These skills can affect how candidates do their job and how they interact with others.

Examples of soft skills include:

• Time management
• Integrity
• Communication
• Creativity
• Emotional intelligence
• Dependability
• Adaptability
• Organization
• Prioritization
• Problem solving

Behavioral interview questions can help you assess soft skills. They often ask candidates to describe past experiences or respond to realistic scenarios. You can also review role-specific interview questions when building your list.

What are 20 common skills-based interview questions?

The following list of skills-based interview questions can help you get started when putting together an interview:

• How do you manage changes to the scope of a project?
• How do you approach a new project to determine if it’s worth pursuing?
• Tell me about a time when you had a communication breakdown with a team member. How did you resolve it?
• How do you organize all the parts of a project?
• Tell me how you would allocate funds when you’re budgeting for a project.
• What would you do if you encountered a work process that’s inefficient or ineffective?
• Describe a time when you had to quickly adapt to a significant change in your work environment.
• How do you prioritize tasks when managing multiple projects or deadlines?
• Tell me about a time when you had to learn a new tool, skill or technology quickly to complete a task.
• How do you support teamwork when leading a group project?
• Imagine that there’s an unexpected delay with a project you’re leading. What would you do?
• How do you stay up to date on industry trends and advancements?
• Tell me about a time when you had to handle a difficult or sensitive situation with a colleague or client.
• What factors do you consider when developing a presentation?
• How do you set performance expectations for yourself and your team?
• Describe how you maintain the quality of your work under tight deadlines.
• How do you prefer to receive feedback from supervisors or peers?
• Can you explain your process for troubleshooting a complicated technical issue?
• Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with someone who had different opinions or workflows.
• Can you share a time when you improved a process at work?

Effective skills-based interview questions connect directly to day-to-day job duties. When you ask each candidate about the same role-related skills and score responses against defined criteria, you create a clearer basis for comparison.