The pandemic has created fanatic changes in the way we work. Recruiting the right employees, who can not only endure but also develop during these unusual times, has become even more demanding.

While functional and technical skills are still as crucial as ever, hiring managers and recruiters have also been searching for employees who have individual negotiable soft skills that are specifically relevant during this time when the workplace as we know it has experienced such an essential transformation. 

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to read and approach the situations with awareness is now absolutely demanding, specifically for team leaders, because “colleagues and customers are balancing so many competing needs in their professional and personal lives,”.

With face-to face contact reduced, employees have to be able to pick up on the refinement of slack messages or zoom calls to ascertain workers’ struggles that affect productivity.

You can establish emotional intelligence during your interviews by creating personal, concrete examples of how you alternated your work strategy with others based on what you determined was happening behind the scenes in their lives. 

Resilience 

Resilience is also demanding to manage stressful situations. “We’re living in a world that can be distrubed at any moment, and those who determine resilience will pull us forward faster.” 

Therefore, recruiting managers are now seeking for workers who have displayed confidence in the face of challenge, specifically since the pandemic placed many people in front of many risky situations. 

The ability to work, adapt and learn towards a successful transition has been a key factor in recruiting. 

A way to determine resilience to a recruiter is to share specific examples in your resume or cover letter of stressful situations you were in, the actions you took in feedback, and the eventual result of those actions. 

Empathy

While separating your work life from your personal life has always been critical, the pandemic has made this departure nearly impractical. 

Whether caring for a loved one sick with COVID_19, working from home, or managing with income loss from a partner’s cutback, being emotional to our coworkers’ challenges can make a big difference to worker productivity, retention and morale.

You can determine empathy by sharing a particular example of how you helped out and made sacrifices to help a personal acquaintance or coworker through a hard situation. The more clear-cut you can be about the emotional act you handled, the better. 

Adaptability

This pandemic has resulted in the backtracking of entire organizations, as well as certain businesses facing terrible volatility due to changes in customer behaviours, client demands and spending habits. 

Working face-to-face with coworkers in a physical, central workspace has rapidly shifted to working remotely across shared workforce. 

Therefore, applicants need to be able to acquire changes in how they work and the tasks they are needed to perform.

Initiative

With so many people now working from home, workers are looking for people who can add value and accomplish tasks with regular contact and minimal guidance.

When applying these skills, signal action in your application process by eagerly going the extra mile by doing in-depth organisation research, providing extra job materials, and reaching out after you apply. 

You can also share examples of when you’ve pushed projects or ideas forward in the past, without outside guidance or encouragement. 

Tenacity

The ability to stay the course when the going gets harsh is specifically crucial during these times when many companies and industries have been hit hard by the pandemic, not to include employees having to manage challenges and setbacks in their own personal lives in the midst of social isolations and lockdowns. 

Relationship management

With the procreation of remote workforces, building positive communications takes even more savvy and effort when many connections are happening remotely over video conference. 

One way to bring your ability to build positive interactions with others is through your LinkedIn suggestions, inviting coworkers you’ve worked closely with to especially comment on your capacity to build connections and nurture strong relationships with people in other locations.