Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Good day, wonderful people, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today our topic is the art of communicating soft skills in interviews. And I am so thankful and excited to welcome to our show Stephanie Grabiec. Stephanie, thank you so much for coming on today.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. It's been a long time coming.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: It certainly has. How are things with you? What's new in your world? Give us the tea, give us the deets, give us it all. What's going on?
[00:00:45] Speaker A: I wish I could give you tea. I don't have any tea.
I'm just working. I am honestly, I am not an exciting person. And that's my tea. I will actually have a cup of tea because that's how boring I actually.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: So I am a tea lover as well. What is your go to tea?
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Just orange pico, nothing crazy.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Orange pico, Yeah. I do like that one as well. I also put a little bit of honey in mine as well. I just love that. And a good cup of tea in the morning is my go to. I will definitely have one for sure and it's very relaxing and it's kind of like my. Okay, let's. I'm ready to go. Let's start today. So I love that you're a tea liker as well.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: I love coffee as well, but for the sake of the conversation, it's tea.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: I love it. Well, thanks so much for sharing and it's nice to hear that we have another thing in common as well as far as tea as liking tea. So I do enjoy that. So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that I ask all of my guests that. Come on, are you ready for yours today?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Sure, let's do it.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: So your question is if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be and why is that?
[00:01:57] Speaker A: In terms of career. Life.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Let's go life. And career.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Okay, Life. And I. I wish my younger self knew this, but partying is not everything it's all cracked up to be. You waste a lot of money doing that. So anybody who is really young right now, believe me, you will grow out of the partying stage very quickly. In terms of my career, I wish I would have started earlier. I feel like I would have been further ahead than I am. Now, not that I'm complaining. Cause I'm in a very good spot right now. I love my job, I love my team, I love my company. I just wish I would have started earlier. I do feel like I'd be farther ahead in terms of career advancement than I am right now.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: And when you say starting earlier, you meaning like as far as education or finding your niche or what you really.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Enjoy in terms of the education aspect. And the reason being is I didn't start, I didn't go back to school until I was 25, another five years to graduate while I worked full time. So I was going to school part time. So I didn't really start my HR career until I was pretty much almost 30. And yeah, it's, it's been, it's been a good journey. I just wish I, I have, I would have started earlier.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: I hear that a lot. And I, I would say that the one lesson that I've heard from a lot of people is that we. Well, of course it's never too late. But also the fact that I'm finding too that people are going into.
To school or they're studying something and they're changing what. What they studied years ago. People. There's a lot of people that I know that studied what they studied and are still working in that profession.
But I'm finding that it's ever changing now and I'm finding that people are. So teachers are changing their professions. A lot of HR people are getting out of HR or getting into leadership. So I find that there's a of lot, a lot of adaptability and a lot of people that are looking at different ways of continuing their career. So it is different today than it was years ago for sure.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Definitely is. And I feel like people who are just coming out of high school, majority of them have no idea what they even want to do. Like originally I wanted to be a mortician, so I went in the opposite direction.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: So I think it's. I don't think it's realistic to ask somebody that young in high school what do they want to do with the rest of your life? Because eventually they're either going to grow tired of it or realize they want to do something else.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your answer and I love that you gave me two different answers. That is super cool of you to do. So why don't we start off with you telling us a little about yourself and I'd like to hear about your why as well.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Okay. So I've been working in HR for about nine years right now. And I specialized in recruitment for the past three and a half years. My why? Good question. I got into HR to help people. I know what it's like to struggle both career wise and financially, but I also know what it's like to have someone believe in you and take that chance on you. So I am trying to extend that to others.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: And how are you going about doing that? Because I know you're, you're a recruiter, so you're helping people find a job. But what, what ways are you helping in, in what you've mentioned?
[00:05:02] Speaker A: If I can't help them directly, in terms of being able to get them a position with my company, just say we don't have that role or they're just not qualified, whatever it may be. I do try to send them to other people I know who might be able to help them. So. So I might not be able to help them directly, but I can at least get their name out there, hopefully get them in front of the right people and maybe just help them catch that break that they need.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: And you're using your rapport you've built with others and that's enabled you to do that. Correct, Correct. Which is super important because anybody can send anybody, anybody to say, would you be able to help this person? But you have to have that rapport with that person. And I think once you have that rapport, they kind of have that trust to say, okay, well, if they're trying to help this person out, that means that. And not everybody, not that anybody's bad, but, but you, if they're helping you out, then you have that reputation of like, okay, well, if they're helping them out, that means that they're good, then we should try to see if we can do something for them. So that's very admirable of you to do so. I love that. So why don't we get into the conversation here? So why is it so hard to talk about our soft skills in an interview?
[00:06:07] Speaker A: It's hard to talk about soft skills because they're really not easy to quantify. So we tend to downplay them and almost just like they're expected sort of deal. So take communication, for example. You can usually tell when someone's a strong communicator by how they speak and share their information. But how do you actually say that in an interview without sounding super generic? Right. On top of that, we do live in a fast paced, results driven world that soft skills often get overshadowed by the hard skills. So even though soft skills are often what lead to long term success.
They're really hard to quantify.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: So I'm seeing it more and more with companies and organizations that they are looking at soft skills a little bit more. But there's still companies that are kind of downplaying it that they're not thinking that it's important. Are you seeing that as well?
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Not necessarily. In my organization it's been a while since I've been in another organization so I can't really say much to anybody else in my organization. Obviously communication is a really, really big factor. So that as a soft skill for example. But I do find it, it's also dependent on the role and if I need to speak to an electrician who you know, really knows their stuff but they're really not interacting which with many other people I can sort of overlook the communication aspect of it. Especially if like they know what they're doing and like they're you know, done it for X amount of years and come with excellent references. But if I'm talking to somebody in sales account management, so customer service, I need to have somebody who is able to have that conversational aspect of it, be able to relate to people, create rapport and be comfortable speaking to them and, and digging into how to help out that person in general.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: So how do candidates effectively present their soft skills during an interview?
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Star Method Great way to highlight both hard and soft skills. For anyone listening who doesn't know what the Star Star method is. It stands for situation, Task, Action, results. And essentially that is your reminder on how to explain an answer in an interview to really get the most impact out of it. If you're trying to find example. But that's not the only approach. So how you carry yourself in an interview, your tone, your body language, your overall engagement, that can say a lot. Another effective tactic is to connect your software skills directly to the role itself. So help the interview see how, help the interviewer see how those skills will contribute to success in, in their specific environment.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: So trying to find a way, looking at the job description, looking what they're looking for and putting your skills in to show them this is what you're looking for and this is how I can help you solve that problem that makes total, that makes total sense. And a lot of people don't realize that they kind of just kind of go in and kind of give all I guess their, their qualifications or their experience which is great. But yeah, I would imagine that your organization, many organizations want to know how you can help them for sure. So are soft Skills given the recognition that they deserve.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: In your mind, the tailoring back into what I had said earlier, it's very dependent on the role itself. In highly technical positions where someone is working independently with limited interactions, soft skills are again sometimes overlooked in favor of their technical expertise because those are really mandatory skills that they have to have. But in roles that involve regular collaborations or client interactions, soft skills are insanely critical. And that said, we're starting to see a bit of a shift. So more organizations are starting to recognize that soft skills aren't just a nice to have, they're essential. And that's especially, especially in leadership positions, for example, or team based environments where communication and your adaptability and emotion, intelligence, it all directly impacts the success of being in that role.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: So do you find any questions that are asked in an interview, do they coincide with how the recognition of soft skills and how to deserve.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Now when you say recognition, do you mean in terms of specific questions to determine if they possess these skills?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: That's not easy because again, they're really hard to quantify. I, I think the, the again, back to communication. That, like that aspect, that's something that you should be able to recognize right away when you're having a conversation with somebody. Have you ever had a conversation where it just flows really easily and like they're able to answer all your questions? That is a really good indicator of someone who has X communication skills. So that would be where you're able to determine whether or not they have that organizational skills. Time management, like those with more behavioral questions. I think those are where you would ask the specific questions in terms of, you know, how do you keep yourself organized? It sounds generic, but there are not right or wrong answers. But you can tell when somebody really understands what helps them because it is a natural answer that can come out very easily. Easily. Or in terms of time management, everyone is so different. So if you're asking somebody how do you keep, you know, track of your time, like all of that fun stuff, how they answer that can also determine how well they keep track of their time because if they don't have an answer for that, like their time management night might not be the best. So I think it depends on the soft skill itself. And that's how we would extract the information would determine that.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that totally, that totally makes sense. So how do soft skills contribute to building inclusive environments?
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Soft skills are key to building inclusive environments because they shape how we connect with others. So think about skills such as empathy, communication, adaptability. Empathy helps us understand different perspectives. Strong Communication and listening make people feel heard. And adaptability allows us to work well with different styles so everyone works differently and listen. Like, if we can adapt to other people's way of working, it really makes things more cohesive. So when we collaborate with respect and openness, it creates a space where everyone feels like they belong and can contribute, which definitely helps in an inclusive environment.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: And I love. You mentioned communication often, which is super cool. And I feel like there's a lot of people, like it's important, but I don't feel like it's. It's talked about enough. And I feel like we can. It's very important to communicate. And like you said, how we communicate and you mentioned tone. The way that we communicate, the way we get our message across and the way we sound are super important. We can be a good talker, we can say all the right words, whatever. But if we don't have the right tone and in order to get our message out, then that could affect things as well, I'm sure. So before we wrap up here, what is one message that you hope sticks with our listeners?
[00:12:48] Speaker A: This can be incredibly hard to convey in an interview. It's not easy, and especially when you're nervous. How many people. People get those nervous jitters because they want the role so bad and that makes your mind go blank. Right. So what I would suggest is prior to an interview, review the job description and really understand what soft skills they're looking for. If none are present, more than likely they'll want to see communication and adaptability and how you handle stress. So having prepared responses can really help successfully convey how you possess these skills and really make you stand out from. From others, especially when they're clear and communicative and you're able to really tell them, this is how I possess this skill. So having those prepared will help you in any interview.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: And then I guess. And that would be all with practice too, right? When we're preparing for an interview, nothing better to do but to practice those answers and get in front of somebody who has experience with interviews to. To get you through those, those, those interviews as well. Well, listen, my call to action would be to, to. To like share and follow this episode. I want to take the time to thank you for coming on, Stephanie. I just admire your kindness, your grace and grit and your engaging personality. I just, I think you're just, you're just such a champion for curiosity and I really appreciate you coming on today and spending the time to chat with me. We've had so many conversations and it's been such a thrill to have this conversation with you today.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: It's been wonderful to to be on here and chatting with you. So thank you for including me.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: You're absolutely welcome. So on behalf of myself and my guest, Stephanie, I'd like to take the time to thank you for listening. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: You have been listening to. Let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
