Interviews, questions & emotional intelligence levels
„Every response you give to another person involves your intellect and your emotions. The intellect composes the message, and the emotions provide animation and grace. Emotion is the message what music is to the lyric. Without the tune, would anyone ever remember the lyric? The skill to combine intellect and emotion in this dramatic and powerful fashion is emotional intelligence, and it possesses the power to elevate even the common exchanges of everyday encounters from the base level of me-and-you to the sublimity of I-and-Thou!” – Howard Hopkins
We’re all characterized by something known as emotional intelligence, which cannot be felt by physically touching a person. It affects the way we behave and interact with other people, and also how and what personal decisions we make, in order to reach positive results.
According to a study conducted by Forbes Magazine, out of all the employees that participated in it, 90% of the top performers registered high values for their emotional intelligence quotient, whilst out of those sitting at the bottom of the performance ladder, only 20% scored high on the EQ chart.
Nowadays, one of the most common mistakes that many HR professionals have noticed is the fact that employers are still recruiting based on hard skills, rather than taking into consideration soft skills as well.
Soft skills, or Emotional intelligence, are based on the following five pillars:
- Self-awareness and self-control – these allow you to remain aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and inclinations
- Empathy – the ability to understand and share feelings with other people
- Social expertise – the ability to develop positive relationships and understand people’s intentions, behaviors and moods, whilst giving you the motivation to improve your relationships
- Personal influence – the capacity to act positively and inspire the people around you
- Mastery of purpose and vision – this is all about bringing authenticity to someone’s life
Emotional Intelligence Interview Questions
- Self-awareness and self-control
- Tell me about the time when you did or said something and it had a positive impact on a coworker, customer, or an employee.
- How do you know if your words or behavior have a positive/negative impact on others?
- Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you needed to adjust or alter your behavior? How did you become aware?
- Where you ever surprised by criticism? What was it about and why were you surprised?
- Are you ever looking forward to go to work?
- Empathy
- Think of a moment when you didn’t understand something at work. What did you do?
- Think of a time when you easily discerned that someone needed help. What did you do?
- Social expertise
- Let’s talk about that time when you were able to get something done at work, due to the relationship you had with another person.
- What makes you a good follower?
- Did you solve any work-related issue recently? If yes, how?
- Tell me about a situation where your input improved someone’s work.
- Personal influence
- Describe a situation in which you would be confident enough to disagree with someone.
- When do you ask for assistance? Let’s talk about the last time you sought someone’s help with something.
- Have you ever thought of a way of being more efficient with your work? How did you go about it?
- What about that time when your plan didn’t come to fruition, what happened? How did you feel about that?
- Describe your goal-setting process.
- Were you ever put in charge of leading a project or a team?
- Mastery of purpose and vision
- Were you ever bored at work?
- What job do you loathe?
- What type of work would you find inspiring?
In addition to the aforementioned pillars, Phil Johnson, the founder of the Master of Business Leadership system, compiled a list of the most popular interview questions, used by MBL clients, to evaluate a candidate’s current level of emotional intelligence:
- What makes you laugh?
- How do you have fun?
- What makes you angry?
- How could you create more balance in your life?
- What is one of the internal battles to have each day?
- Who inspires you? Why?
- On an “average day” is your main focus on results and tasks or people and emotions?
The bottom line of it all is that you can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but having a high EQ quotient helps with situations where your hard skills cannot fix a certain issue.
The good news is the more you train your brain, by repeatedly using various emotional intelligence-enhancing strategies, the better you become at everything you do, from interacting with others or even your work.
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Tags: Emotional Intelligence, Individual Performance, Interview
