When interviewing potential medical assistants, are soft skills as important to your healthcare organization as hard skills? Does your organization know the techniques required to conduct a successful interview? Consider some key factors.

What Are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are personal qualities and abilities, including social interaction, decision making, communication style, and more that are consciously or subconsciously included when fulfilling job responsibilities.

How Is Patient Satisfaction Affected?

Patients are to healthcare organizations what customers are to retail stores. Patients are receiving a service. And their perception of that service—from any staff member—can determine whether they will be loyal to your healthcare facility. In fact, patient surveys, including the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), show that soft skills have a major impact on patient satisfaction.

Survey Says…

One Oxford Economics survey reveals the most important qualities employers should look for in job candidates aren’t hard skills. Some of the top soft skills to look for in an employee, including a medical assistant, are listed below.

  • Balancing opposing views

  • Co-creativity and brainstorming

  • Cultural sensitivity

  • Relationship building with customers

  • Teaming

  • Oral and written communications

How to Identify a Medical Assistant’s Soft Skills

If your organization has an internal recruiting team or managers who participate in the hiring process, everyone should be trained on how to identify soft skills. Training should include the following:

  • Teach interviewers to identify a candidate’s soft skills that will affect patient interactions and patient satisfaction.

  • Use behavioral-based interview questions for every candidate. Some examples on how to structure the questions are below:

    • Tell me about a specific situation when…

    • How did it make you feel?

    • What was your reaction?

  • Use specific questions for reference checks to help identify an applicant’s past behavior.

Trustworthy Assistance in Interviewing for Soft Skills

At WSi, our team of professionals can simplify the interview process for you. We have decades of experience in asking the right questions to identify medical assistants and other healthcare professionals who have the hard and soft skills needed to increase patient satisfaction and help your organization thrive. We can guide you in interviewing for soft skills, or we can do the interviewing for you. Contact us today.