Challenges and complex scenarios are a regular part of any job, no matter the exact technical skill set involved. How employees navigate these challenges goes a long way in determining their job performance and, in turn, the organization’s efficiency and quality of solutions.
Despite their necessity, reasoning skills can be hard to spot during candidate evaluations. To hire for such skills, you must understand what they are and what traits constitute strong reasoning ability. Dive in as we discuss these in detail and how hiring for reasoning skills can transform your team.
What are reasoning skills?
Reasoning skills are the various traits required to logically assess a situation, analyze all its aspects, and draw an objective, suitable conclusion. These skills empower employees not just to solve problems but also to adjust their thought patterns to fit the current issue’s specific nature. This is important as problems tend to be dynamic, making flexibility and adaptability necessary.
According to a 2023 Statista survey, more than 70% of companies surveyed consider creative thinking and analytical thinking to be the skills most expected to rise in importance between 2023 and 2027. This shows that reasoning skills are among the most sought-after soft skills in the workplace today and are necessary for an organization’s success.
How do reasoning skills impact your team?
Reasoning skills can make the difference between an innovative team that consistently delivers efficient solutions and one with average performance. With that being said, here are five powerful ways reasoning skills impact your team.
1. Effective, dynamic solutions
Every organization aims for impressive solutions, but complex, unexpected challenges occasionally arise. When faced with such problems, employees must find a way around them to maintain high standards and continue to deliver quality solutions.
Reasoning skills help employees strategically identify the problem’s root cause, analyze information to determine possible options, and decide on the best course of action. This structured approach allows them to propose solutions to any challenge and consistently drive success for your organization.
2. Higher client satisfaction
For optimum client satisfaction, employees must be able to assess and determine how the organization can quickly but efficiently meet their needs. Every client’s situation is unique and, in most cases, demands custom solutions.
Reasoning skills help employees liaise with customers, listening to them and gaining a clearer understanding of how your organization can assist them. This way, they can provide recommendations that effectively address the client’s needs, keeping them satisfied and more likely to continue doing business with you.
3. Stronger team bonds and relationships
Cohesiveness and strong relationships among team members are essential for your team to thrive. However, when working with people, misunderstandings and differences in opinion are inevitable.
Reasoning skills enhance logical communication and emotional intelligence, which allow employees to respectfully express their concerns and understand other team members’ perspectives. This reduces friction within the team, promoting amicable conflict resolution, healthy discussions, and support.
4. Positive work culture
Without reasoning skills, poor communication and frequent misunderstandings are bound to occur. When employees logically analyze issues, they encourage healthy communication and employee relationships, laying the foundation for a positive work environment. Reasoning skills promote collective effort and brainstorming sessions, creating an atmosphere of mutual respect, teamwork, and productivity.
5. Continuous development
Reasoning skills encourage analytically assessing a situation to identify what works and areas that need improvement. Whether addressing challenges within the team or evaluating their performance, these skills make employees more thoughtful and result-oriented in their approach.
Additionally, employees with reasoning skills listen to contrasting opinions, making them receptive to constructive feedback. This openness refines their skills and cultivates a learning culture, leading to better results.
5 traits of employees with good reasoning skills
Certain qualities depict reasoning skills, and knowing these traits will help you identify them during candidate evaluations. Below are five traits of employees with good reasoning skills:
1. Critical thinking
Critical thinking is the ability to take a complex problem and objectively analyze its various parts to draw a plausible conclusion. Critical thinkers don’t react to surface-level information; instead, they carefully scrutinize all perspectives and relevant information before acting. By doing so, they avoid foreseeable mistakes, anticipate any potential issues, and create viable solutions well ahead of time.
2. Logical problem-solving
NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 Report states that 90% of employers responding to the Job Outlook 2024 survey indicated they are seeking evidence of a student’s ability to solve problems. Challenges sometimes appear huge and intricate, but logical problem-solving structurally breaks them into manageable parts to arrive at a solution.
With this trait, employees address a problem using a step-by-step approach, evaluating factual evidence to identify its exact cause and decide on a solution. This allows for an organized, collected thought process, eliminating the inclination to panic in the face of difficulty.
3. Attention to detail
When reasoning through complex, multifaceted challenges, it can be easy to miss small details, resulting in errors. Employees who practice attention to detail notice and analyze the smallest piece of information when faced with a situation, reducing the possibility of mistakes. With this skill, they can also deduce how seemingly small factors can affect the overall picture and adjust their plans accordingly.
4. Communication
In addition to analyzing and breaking down problems, employees also need to share their findings. Strong communication skills help your team members articulate their thoughts clearly and have productive, insightful conversations. This allows others to understand their thought process, constructively criticize, or contribute where necessary, improving the team’s general performance.
5. Adaptability
Problem-solving is rarely static, and when reasoning, it’s important to adjust to new information as it arises. Adaptability allows for this flexible approach, enabling employees to reassess and restrategize in the face of uncertainty or change. As a result, employees remain focused and capable of delivering quality solutions regardless of any disruptions to the status quo in the organization.
How are reasoning skills used in the workplace?
Reasoning skills come into play in several day-to-day tasks on any job and are a must for efficiency and seamless delivery. In this section, we’ll focus on five common uses of reasoning skills in the workplace.
1. Data analysis
Reliable, accurate data is the basis for good decision-making, but it takes sharp reasoning skills to turn raw data into insightful information. Reasoning skills allow employees to interpret data, notice trends, and apply the interpreted data to situations around them. Equipped with this information, employees can then confidently take action that enhances the company’s output and produces favorable results.
2. Problem-solving and creative thinking
Reasoning ability enables employees to break large, complex problems into smaller parts and note all possible facets and details of the situation. Additionally, it facilitates creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, helping employees visualize and apply unique solutions when required. For example, with sharp reasoning skills, an employee can leverage a social media trend to market a product creatively to a new audience.
3. Teamwork and collaboration
Employees with poor reasoning skills tend to insist on their opinions alone, refusing to acknowledge another’s viewpoint in any team effort. Strong reasoning ability helps team members rationally dissect each other’s ideas to offer and receive feedback, thus working towards the team’s goal with synergy. It creates an atmosphere that encourages productive, constructive conversations where everyone is open to hearing, understanding, and implementing diverse perspectives.
4. Conflict resolution
Sometimes, even in the most positive workspaces, conflicts arise between team members. In such situations, employees harness reasoning skills to listen and understand the other person’s hurt and then provide an empathetic response. This maintains mutual friendship between team members, prevents abrasiveness, and ensures team harmony, contributing to higher productivity.
5. Planning and project management
Reasoning skills help employees set long-term project goals, break these goals into achievable phases, and determine the most efficient route to take during each phase. At every stage, employees can harness reasoning skills to resolve obstacles, allocate resources, and adapt to any changes. This way, projects have a smoother execution period and successfully reach completion on time.
How to assess for business reasoning skills
There are several ways to check for reasoning skills in candidates before employment, each with its unique assessment style and advantages. The following are four of the most effective ways you can evaluate the strength of your candidates’ reasoning skills.
1. Skills assessments
Skills assessments are standardized tests that check a candidate’s skills and job competency based on their performance compared to your set preferences and requirements. They evaluate a range of hard and soft skills, depending on what you deem necessary for success on the job.
This is one of the most effective methods of assessing reasoning skills, but you must use quality recruitment software for accuracy and reliability. And Vervoe is the perfect solution for your needs.
Vervoe provides convenient and accurate testing features, including an assessment library, assessment builder, anti-cheating features, personalized grading, and an AI optimization tool.
Using our bank of 300+ assessment templates, you can check for reasoning skill traits like communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Our software also comes with a question bank with over 300,000 questions to help you build your custom assessment tailored to your open role.
2. Job simulations
Job simulations provide in-depth, realistic scenarios showing specific situations that the candidate is likely to face on the job. With these tests, you can present challenges that require reasoning ability and see firsthand how they approach, analyze, and resolve the problem.
Vervoe provides detailed simulations for a variety of roles, all of which replicate the specific job and show the candidate’s level of proficiency in the necessary skills. For example, with our project management simulations, you can watch a candidate plan a project’s timeline and see how they predict and plan for possible challenges.
3. Behavioral interviews
Interviews are a great way to gauge candidates’ behavior and interact with them to understand their reasoning. They show you the candidate’s nonverbal cues and bodily reactions, giving you further insight into how they think.
For maximum accuracy, your interviews should follow a structured pattern and ask questions that show how the candidate tackles complex situations. You can inquire about moments when they disagreed with colleagues, how they handled the issue, times they made difficult decisions, and what influenced their choices.
Keep in mind that interviews aren’t reliable as a standalone assessment due to hiring bias and should be combined with more effective screening methods like skills assessments.
Identify sharp reasoning skills with Vervoe
Reasoning skills may appear difficult to test for, but with the right knowledge and assessment methods, you can spot them at a glance. Candidate skills assessments are an easy, foolproof way to evaluate a candidate’s level of reasoning ability and how they apply it in the specific job role.
Vervoe’s robust assessment library and job simulations help you quickly and accurately identify candidates with sharp reasoning skills for any role. Our personalized grading and AI optimization features grade each candidate against your preferred criteria and rank their performances to show you the best prospect for the job. Also, we offer personalization features, branding, and candidate support for a rich experience.
So, take a step back and let Vervoe handle your recruitment needs. Register for a free demo to easily find the best candidates today!
