How to hire for real-world problem-solving skills in the age of AI

Skills matter. Most employers are doing skill-based hiring, which means they are looking for evidence that candidates can do the things that their business needs. Problem-solving continues to be among the top skills that employers are looking for, but selecting candidates accordingly remains a challenge.

Under pressure, problem-solving is not ‘just’ intellectual; it is an emotional intelligence skill.¹

Emotions are involved in every step of problem-solving, and so can be an asset or a hindrance throughout the process. In order to be able to apply their analytical and decision making skills, a candidate needs to be able to manage stress and other emotions when facing challenges. 

During interviews, it is challenging to find ways for candidates to demonstrate their skills, so we end up asking candidates to talk about their skills instead. This demonstrates the candidates ability to reflect and articulate, not their ability to solve problems. 

Additionally, with the availability of AI, candidates can now prepare responses using online problem-solving models. While these models might be helpful in certain contexts, they don’t help us get to know the unique emotional skills and responses of a candidate. 

If you want to know how a candidate actually handles problems, especially under pressure, then consider:

• Presenting a scenario from your workplace during the interview, so that the hiring team can observe a candidate’s problem-solving in real time; and 
• Bringing emotions into your scoring rubric, so that you are assessing a more fulsome range of skills required for effective problem solving. 

We’ll offer some notes and examples below, which you are welcome to use for creating scenarios and scoring rubrics tailored to your workplace. Adding details that are specific to your industry and organization will make your interview tools effective for selecting candidates with solid problem-solving skills and more resilient in this age of AI.

Problem-solving in real time: Scenarios

Real-time scenarios can provide you with greater insights into how candidates approach unfamiliar problems, communicate their reasoning and respond to uncertainty. Developing scenarios for hiring can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t need to be. Consider including: 

• A situation that someone in the role is likely to face
• A challenging or more complex interaction that can arise in the role
• Routine constraints (e.g. timelines, resources or collaboration within/between teams)
• Instructions about what kind(s) of information you are hoping to hear from the candidate, including the emotions that may arise for them. 

Ask candidates to speak directly about emotions. 

Asking candidates to speak about their emotions in a scenario is one way to gain additional insights. A candidate’s willingness and ability to identify and communicate emotions when explicitly prompted can provide useful information about how they may approach challenging or uncertain situations at work. 

Be as specific as possible. For example: 

We are going to describe a scenario that a member of our sales team faced, and ask you to explain how you would feel, think and act. Here is the situation: 

You have been working on a presentation for a prospective client that your supervisor has told you the company needs to land. It took three months to book this meeting, and in preparation you’ve created a polished slide deck, with critical data visualized. The night before, you are doing one last run-through at home, and your computer crashes. You will not be able to access your slides and notes in time for the presentation in the morning. 

Please walk us through your feelings, thought process, final decision about what to do. 

Bringing emotions into problem-solving rubrics

“We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think”

António R. Damásio

When assessing candidates’ responses to scenarios, what exactly should the hiring team be considering? Most of us fancy ourselves good problem-solvers (and in some cases, for good reason), but a well-developed scoring rubric will support more consistent and fair assessments – both across hiring committee members, as well as between interviews.²

We believe scoring rubrics are most helpful when they include the particular emotional intelligence (EI) skills needed to take effective action in each step of problem solving. For this example, we will focus on four broad steps: (1) defining the problem, (2) analyzing potential solutions, (3) making decisions and (4) communicating. For each of these steps, we will review the role of emotions and offer examples of EI skills that could be included in scoring rubrics. 

A sample rubric for one EI competency will be offered at the end, which you are welcome to use in developing more fulsome rubrics for roles in your workplace. 

1. Coping with stress in order to face problems

Taking the first step in defining a problem requires facing it. Acknowledging a problem involves opening ourselves up to the unknown and the multiple ways forward. Uncertainty is stressful. And our bodies prepare for uncertainty as if it were a matter of survival, so it can sometimes feel less stressful to ignore problems than to deal with them… in the short term, anyways. 

How a candidate demonstrates Stress Tolerance and Flexibility in the face of uncertainty can indicate their problem solving abilities (see sample rubric at end). 

What other EI skills might be helpful for facing and defining the challenges in your workplace? 

2. Sticking with the analysis, without getting stuck

Generating and analyzing possible solutions is at the heart of problem-solving. Sometimes we can’t imagine any potential solutions. And sometimes we dig up too many.

How do we know when we’ve thought deeply and broadly enough about ways of responding to a problem? On the flipside, how can we avoid analysis paralysis? 

It can be helpful to look at Reality Testing and Impulse Control, to gauge whether candidates establish criteria for how much information is needed to make an informed decision (vs. rushing ahead with whatever comes to mind or waiting until all the potentially relevant details are gathered). 

You might also consider scoring candidates’ Social Responsibility in creating criteria for analyzing potential solutions. For example, did they consider the organizational values, and/or wider social values to establish priorities? What other EI skills might be relevant for creating and analyzing potential solutions in your workplace? 

3. Decision making

Emotions of many sorts can influence decision-making. We can be crushed by the weight of responsibility, enamoured with one solution or influence, trapped in fear, or we can be curious, excited and enthusiastic about what lies ahead.

Effective decision-making requires drawing on a range of emotional intelligence skills, including many we’ve already mentioned: flexibility, stress tolerance, reality testing, optimism and social responsibility. 

Depending on the particular role and organizational needs, moving to a decision may require Empathy and/or Independence. In what ways does the candidate consider the emotional impacts on co-workers, clients, and/or partners when making a decision? If negative impacts might follow from making a decision, how does the candidate cope with that possibility and take ownership of the decision? What other EI skills might be effective for decision-making in your workplace? 

4. Assertive and open communication for demonstrating skills 

In addition to assessing problem-solving itself, hiring teams may want to score candidates’ EI skills in communicating their process and decision. 

For example, did the candidate communicate their feelings and decisions constructively, honouring their values while also attending to the team and organizational needs and priorities (Assertiveness)? 

Would other EI skills support effective communication in your workplace? Emotional Expression? Empathy?

Sample scoring rubric

In the sample rubric below, we focus on one EI skill related to problem definition, but we encourage you to edit, add, or prioritize, based on your organization’s needs. 

We encourage you to reflect on which EI skills would support effective action in specific roles and contexts. For example, if hiring for a high pressure leadership role, you could focus on Stress Management and Impulse Control. Does the candidate jump right into solving the urgent-seeming problem, or do they take a moment to prioritize vis-a-vis the full range of activities and issues on their desk right now? 

This sample rubric is meant to inspire and illustrate how you might develop more emotionally informed tools for assessing problem-solving skills during interviews.³

We would love to hear about the scoring rubrics you develop, and how they serve you in the hiring process!

1.  See, for example, this table from the NACE 2025 report and. Based on this survey of Employers, NACE 2026, job outlook report.
2. Most people in North America tend to rate their problem-solving abilities (among others), as above average (e.g. due to psychological bias known as “illusory superiority”; Rich 2014, for NY Times). But studies of our actual skills are mixed. For example, Canada ranks slightly above, and the United States slightly below the OECD average for proficiency in adaptive problem solving. OECD Adult Skills Studies, 2024 (PDF). And similar variation is seen at the individual level. 
3. Here are some other resources: 1. BC Government Problem solving resource (PDF). 2. Canadian Government Problem solving guide. 

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