Pass your next interview: Soft skills for SWEs

It’s no secret that the job market is highly competitive right now. Top-tier tech companies are no exception. Apple Insider reported last fall that, on average, more than 50 applicants apply for each job at Apple, each day.

This means you have to be prepared to showcase everything you bring to the table as a potential hire, and two studies from tech giant Google suggest that strong “soft skills” can set you apart during the interview process.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are the personal attributes that make it easier for you to effectively interact with others in a professional setting. They’re sometimes referred to as interpersonal skills or people skills. While your hard or technical skills are what work you’re capable of doing for a company, your soft skills are how you’d work with the other employees (and the company itself).  

Here are three soft skills often highlighted as Valued Engineer Traits (VETs) and how to showcase them in your next interview.

Communication

Why it’s important

Communication is frequently cited as one of the most important soft skills—and for good reason. How you communicate with others is important when building trust, fostering collaboration (another soft skill that we’ll look at), and resolving conflicts when they inevitably arise. It is also key to expressing empathy (yet another soft skill).

On the other hand, poor communication creates unmet expectations, misunderstandings, and frustration.

How to showcase it

To effectively demonstrate your soft skills, use the STARR Method—Situation, Task, Action, Result, and Reflection of the situation you describe. Come to the interview with prepared examples for behavioral questions, but having the right examples aligned to the STARR method without the right delivery won’t land you the job. It’s important to remember that employers will use your entire interview to learn how you communicate. Good communication has two parts – speaking and listening.

Speaking

The most obvious side of effective communication is speaking. After all, it’s how you share your thoughts and ideas. And, during an interview, you’re selling yourself by sharing stories of your past behavior so the company can use it to predict how you’ll do in their workplace.

Tips for speaking:

DO: Speak clearly and confidently, make eye contact, and be brief but detailed.

DON’T: Mumble, ramble, or use filler words like "um" or "uh."

Listening

The second, and sometimes more important part of communication is listening. Active listening shows that you’re responsive and engaged in the conversation.

Tips for active listening:

• DO: Look at the person speaking, pay attention to your body language, nod or smile to show you're listening, repeat back what you heard to confirm understanding, and ask questions.
• DON’T: Interrupt, multitask, jump to conclusions, or just think about what you want to say next.

Collaboration

Why it’s important

Projects often require diverse skill sets, from front-end design to back-end development, databases, testing, and deployment. Collaboration through things like code reviews and pair programming allows engineers to catch errors early, adhere to coding standards, and ensure that the code base remains maintainable and scalable. It also helps with understanding and meeting project requirements more accurately.

How to showcase it

Make sure to highlight your collaboration skills during the behavioral interview. Prepare a few examples where teamwork played a critical role in achieving success. This shows that you can work well with others respectfully and professionally and demonstrates your contribution to the team's overall success. The way you showcase your ability to collaborate might vary depending on your career stage.

Expressing Empathy

Why it’s important

The most obvious reason that being able to express empathy is important is that it can lead to better collaboration, communication and conflict resolution for colleagues. But beyond that, empathy leads to more user-friendly products because empathy is essential to understanding the needs and perspectives of users.

How to showcase it

When given a chance to ask questions, ask about the team culture, how feedback is shared, or how the company supports personal growth and work-life balance. This shows that you care about the team you’ll be working with.

Share stories where you helped a colleague who was struggling, provided constructive feedback in a considerate manner, or adjusted your work style to better align with the team’s needs. Show how you listen to others, value different perspectives, and work towards shared goals.

Finally, show self-awareness about your strengths and weaknesses and talk about how you handle stress, setbacks, and constructive criticism. Empathy involves understanding your emotions and those of others, so sharing how you manage conflicts or difficult situations can illustrate this trait.

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