Introduction
Employers typically mean the ability to deal with difficult or unexpected work situations and complex business problems when they talk about problem-solving skills. People who can objectively assess any sort of situation and come up with workable answers are pivotal to any organization. Skills in problem-solving are highly valued by employers but are also highly transferable to other areas of life, such as interpersonal communication and day-to-day decision-making. As the team leader, the work will be to hire personnel who can tackle the problem skillfully while simultaneously providing desirable results.
Executive functioning skills
Executive functioning skills to a group of cognitive abilities that allow us to control our actions and achieve our goals (Chan et al., 2021). It entails abilities such as forethought, working memory, restraint, and adaptability. We can better complete tasks and achieve our goals when we have strong executive functioning skills. To work effectively in the assigned role, certain skills will be needed. Since it is for the well-being of disabled children, the job needs to be done by people who are meticulous in their jobs.
One of the skills needed for this role would be planning and prioritizing. Planning and prioritizing are the abilities to determine what must be completed and in what sequence (Chan et al., 2021). This type of ability will also look into their time management abilities. It demands the person to take a step back and consider the total amount of work, the amount of time needed to finish it, and the relation between the jobs (Chan et al., 2021). During the interview, the questions asked to measure this skill would include those that prompt the interviewee to show how they would plan for the project and complete it in due time.
Cognitive flexibility is another executive functioning skill that would be looked for in a potential employee during the interview. This type of skill refers to the ability of the person to think about something in more than one way (Chan et al., 2021). This type of skill would help them adapt to new circumstances. During the interview, a situation would be given to determine if the interviewee possesses this ability that would test their cognitive flexibility. What if the school needed to modify the changes midway through the project to suit a certain situation? How would they give a solution to that, and are they flexible enough to bring solutions?
Working memory is another executive functioning skill that would be desirable for the role. The ability to hold, retrieve, and manipulate several bits of information in one’s memory at once is known as working memory (Chan et al., 2021). The task requires individuals who can hold onto relevant information while they are working on the task (Chan et al., 2021). This skill also ensures that the individual can follow through with their commitments without constantly referring back to a to-do list (Chan et al., 2021). Working memory is important for this job as there are many details that they need to work with.
The other executive functioning skill that would be needed for the job is self-control. The job would mean working close to children and other adults. Therefore self-control is an important skill to possess. This competence indicates the ability to tolerate frustrating situations. They can accept criticism as well. Difficult emotions can rapidly become overwhelming, and emotional responses can be quite intense. This skill, therefore, comes in handy.
Assessing an employee’s executive functioning skills
Having an employee who possesses these executive functions will ensure that the job is completed timely and that the details that may be added as the project continues are implemented. Executive functioning skills, also including soft skills, are an important qualification and experience. These skills do not always present themselves during the interview, and the interviewer has to be keen on them.
One of the ways to assess executive functioning and soft skills would be to look at social and physical cues. This includes how they interact with the people around them. You can assess how they respond to questions and interact with the interviewers during the interview. The executive functioning skill can be tested by asking them to give a recount of one of their challenging jobs and how they handled inconveniences. The interviewee may not always be truthful and such details can be ironed out through references.
The other way to assess the interviewees’ executive and soft skills would be to read them a set of instructions and ask them to state them back to the interviewer. This tests the interviewees’ short-term memory and how they react to a situation if they are patient or would negatively react to situations.
The other way to run the assessment would be to give the interviewee a problem requiring the skills to solve. Give candidates a real-life scenario from the job that demands these skills and have them give you a walk-through on how they would handle it during the interview, rather than asking them about their past use of these skills in contexts that may not be related to the position. Step by step, have them figure out what they can contribute and how.
Questions to ask the candidate to assess their problem-solving skills
The difference between the existing state and the ideal end is what we mean when we say there is a problem. The ability to solve problems is essential for filling this need (Gilovich et al., 2019). In the workplace, problem-solving explains how we think and behave to get the result we want, be it the completion of a task or the discovery of a solution to a question (Gilovich et al., 2019). There are a variety of approaches to problem-solving that can be chosen depending on the nature of the problem, the amount of time available for analysis and preparation, and the need to try out numerous options before selecting the best one (Gilovich et al., 2019).
A candidate’s responses to questions designed to gauge how they would handle uncommon or challenging circumstances are evaluated using problem-solving interview questions. Therefore, it is crucial to thoroughly evaluate a candidate’s problem-solving abilities before hiring them. Some of the questions that can be asked during the interview to asses the interviewees’ problem-solving capabilities include giving an example of a time when they had to make do with very little in order to address a problem. This would allow the interviewee to speak from past experience on how they implemented the problem-solving skill.
The other question that can be asked to asses their problem-solving skill is how they evaluate options before settling on one. This test the skills of intellectual thinking and how they would apply it to problem-solving. This allows the interviewer to understand the interviewee’s thinking process. The other question could be how they proceed when faced with a problem for which there is no clear answer. The other question to include could be which is the biggest problem they have faced in their work, how they tackle it, and what they think makes them great at problem-solving.
The rationale of the types of questions asked to assess executive functioning skills
Executive functioning skills are important as they will show the interviewer how well the interviewee will perform their tasks. The executive functioning skills of a person enable them to live, work, and study with an age-appropriate amount of autonomy and competence (Lewis et al., 2017). Executive functioning enables individuals to obtain information, consider solutions, and apply them.
The questions asked to test the level of executive functioning skills were important to test the capabilities that person had to perform the job. The questions would show how the interviewee would start, prioritize and complete their tasks (Lewis et al., 2017). The questions also showed how, if given the job, the interviewee would remember details of the project as instructed. The questions would also help the interviewer understand how the interviewee follows instructions and how they relate to the people they work with (Lewis et al., 2017). Furthermore, the questions help the interviewer understand how the interviewee reacts in changing situations and their flexibility to the stations (Lewis et al., 2017).
References
Chan, T., Wang, I., & Ybarra, O. (2021). Leading and managing the workplace: The role of executive functions. Academy of Management Perspectives, 35(1), 142–164. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2017.0215
Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., Chen, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2019). Social psychology (5th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.
Lewis, N. A., Turiano, N. A., Payne, B. R., & Hill, P. L. (2017). Purpose in life and cognitive functioning in adulthood. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 24(6), 662–671. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825585.2016.1251549
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