Sara Fletcher, Author

Going through the hiring process can be long and exhausting. With each resume resembling the next, it’s nearly impossible to pick a good candidate out of them all. However, one way to differentiate your top candidates is to assess them not only based on resume and work experience but their emotional intelligence (EI).

TheFreeDictionary.com defines EI as, “Intelligence regarding the emotions, especially in the ability to monitor one’s own or others’ emotions.” Fifty-eight (58) percent of job performance is based on your employees’ emotional intelligence, making it an important factor in the recruiting process. There are three main characteristics you’ll want to look for.

Self-Management

A significant aspect of emotional intelligence and workday productivity is self-management. While you can simply ask the candidate how their self management skills are, you should assess this based on their emotional intelligence, as well.

Questions to ask:

• Tell me about an experience when you were stressed with a difficult task. How did you manage it?
• Walk me through a stressful day for you, and how you work through it.
• What are some situations that you’ve been annoyed with at work? Tell me how you handled them.

Emotional Awareness

Candidates that are emotionally aware of themselves and of other people are likely to make a smooth transition into any office environment. Because of this, you want to assess their emotional awareness within the first interview. If a candidate has good emotional awareness, they are able to not only understand how their emotions reflect on others but also understand the emotions of others – this allows them to relate with other employees making for a unified office setting.

Questions to ask:

• Do you feel you communicate well with co-workers? Tell me about a time when you did.
• Do you feel you get along well with co-workers and those in management positions?
• Describe a time when you were angry with someone at work. How did you handle those feelings?

Problem Solving

A high level of emotional intelligence is also beneficial in problem solving. Understanding the emotions of yourself and others allows you to assess a situation properly and effectively, leading to better problem solving abilities with co-workers, customers and self. WorkingResources.com suggests, “Utilizing the power and energy of one’s emotions leads to high motivation, and improves problem-solving and decision-making.”

Questions to ask:

• Do you feel confident making impromptu decisions? Give me an example when you did this successfully.
• How do you feel you communicate in times of turbulence? Describe an incident where you had to handle a conflict.
• Have you ever been blamed for something at work you did not do? How did you handle this?

Interviewing potential candidates by assessing their emotional intelligence allows you to evaluate them on a level that will differentiate from person to person. When resumes start blending into one pile of previous work experience, catering your questions toward emotional intelligence will give you a better platform to hire from.

Sara Fletcher is an avid blogger who writes on everything from finding jobs in Canada to how to search for jobs in Toronto. She has written on a variety of blogs and websites, and loves to learn all she can on the job hunt. Follow Sara on Twitter @SaratheFletcher.