7 Interview Questions For Measuring
Emotional Intelligence
The traditional
interview model helps you probe someone's past experience, not their style of
thinking.
Emotional intelligence
involves self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social
skills. In other words, it's a complicated amalgam that hiring managers have a
hard time testing for. As a result, many fall back on gut instincts and
subjective impressions.
It isn't always a smart
move to leave something so important to such faulty measures. When a candidate
has these qualities, they can work well with others and lead change
effectively, so it's no wonder why organizations are placing a higher priority
on emotional intelligence. And fortunately, even the traditional interview
format can be retooled to test for it.
Just about every smart interview candidate has figured out how to appear highly emotionally intelligent, whether or not
they actually are. For hiring managers looking to tell a great performance from
genuine attributes, a helpful first step is to get out of the office. Go to a
quiet coffee shop, park, or some other place where you won’t be interrupted.
That can help get your candidate off guard a bit without making them overly
uncomfortable. Then ask these seven questions.
Instead of asking that
outright, you might tell a quick anecdote about a family member or colleague
who annoys you. Then ask if there's anyone at the candidate's last job who
really bothered them and how they dealt with that.
Of course, a savvy
candidate will focus on solutions—like how they've smoothed that relationship
over—but it can still give you valuable insight into how they perceive other
people. You'll probably also learn something about how well they understand the
effect of their behavior on others (and its limits).
Here, too, you can start
out by giving them an example of one of your days from hell. It isn't about
feeding them a scenario you're looking for your interviewee to spit back;
you're just modeling the type of situation you want to hear them reflect upon.
So don't just ask them
to describe a bad day; ask how they dealt with it. Does it seem that they
dwelled on the problem or blamed others (even if they put it differently), or
really looked for solutions? Listen for evidence of any surefire coping mechanisms.
You want to hire someone who's got the flexibility to deal with uncertain and
unpredictable situations—a hallmark of emotional intelligence.
The relationships people build with others can tell you a lot. For
that matter, so can the way they perceive those relationships. Based on the candidate's
account, how do they see themselves, and what do they value in others? You'll
also get some insight into your interviewee's self-awareness. Humor, unless
it's sarcastic and demeaning, is always a good sign. If the relationship they
describe sounds too formal and humorless to be true, it probably is.
This can set an interviewee
off their footing a bit, but in a good way. Ask questions that indicate your
lack of understanding and really press for details in the explanation. As you
do, does your job candidate seem to fight back frustration and impatience—in
their facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice? Or do they ask more
questions in order to gather information about what it is you don’t get?
Are they able to explain
the idea simply and rework their approach to clarifying things when it becomes
clear you're still confused? A highly emotionally intelligent candidate
naturally assumes responsibility for getting their ideas across. The
opportunity to share their knowledge and teach others is exciting, not stress
inducing, and takes communication skills that this type of person loves to
hone.
Consciously or otherwise, we tend to model some of our behaviors
after those we admire. Ask your interviewee to reflect on that. Is the object
of their admiration a "people person," someone who inspires and
encourages others, or more of a tactical thinker who's better left down in the
weeds, working things out on their own? There are no categorically wrong
answers here, and sometimes the person a candidate says they admire reflects
attributes they wish they possessed, not those they do.
All this is useful to find out. Listen carefully, then dig further
by asking if there's anything they've picked up from the person they admire.
You can even ask whether there's anything about that person the interviewee doesn't like, in spite of the things they do.
This one's good to leave
open-ended, although you can offer an example of something you've personally
achieved in order to get them started. It can be related to their career but
doesn't need to be. When the candidate talks about their achievements, do they
include and credit others, or are they a one-person show?
Do they talk about how
it made others feel—the validation and support they got from family, friends,
and coworkers who helped them along the way and celebrated their success?
Sometimes great accomplishments really are individual wins, but emotionally
intelligent people know that nothing really meaningful ever happens in a
vacuum.
This will give you a
view into what your interviewee values in others and on teams. What sorts of
people do they prefer to work with? Do they focus on the people or the
outcomes? What's their style of relating to and managing others in order to
accomplish shared goals? Do they like to work closely with others, or do they
prefer to work independently?
The more you can get
away from the traditional interview model, which is mostly geared to probing a
candidate's past experience, the better insight you can gain into their
emotional intelligence. This means being creative—ask hypothetical questions
and don't hesitate to share your own views and experiences.
That can help get a
candidate to open up and offer their own candid (rather than scripted)
perspective on the things that will matter most in a real work environment.
These seven questions are great to start with, but they're only a jumping-off
point for measuring emotional intelligence, so don't hesitate to adapt them.
You might even make better hires if you do.
HARVEY DEUTSCHENDORF
http://www.fastcompany.com/3057294/work-smart/7-interview-questions-for-measuring-emotional-intelligence?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=1&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=03052016
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