Soft skills include listening, explaining clearly, staying calm under pressure, adapting to change and working well with others. A CV can claim them but rarely proves them. They show up more clearly in how someone answers a question: whether they give a specific example, explain their reasoning and respond to follow-ups. Asking how a candidate handled a difficult customer, for example, reveals more than the phrase 'excellent communicator'.
In customer-facing and frontline roles, soft skills often matter as much as technical knowledge, yet they are the easiest to judge on instinct. Defining exactly which soft skills the role needs, asking every candidate for evidence of them in the same way and scoring answers against agreed descriptions reduces the risk of rewarding confidence or familiarity rather than genuine ability.