Want to Hire Emotionally Intelligent People? Follow These Tips!

A great hiring manager should pay attention to not just what candidates say, but what they do, both inside and outside of the interview. These steps will help ensure you select candidates who have high emotional intelligence (EQ). EQ is a critical skill that explains 58% of an individual’s job performance. Do you know that 90% of top performers have high EQs?

Don’t regret on your next hiring decision, these strategies that follow will help ensure you make a great hire.

1. Learn to read body language.

When you learn how to interpret body language, you will find it easier to understand whether your candidate is suited for the role. Many tells, like raised eyebrows or a clenched jaw  reveal discomfort.

Learning to identify candidates’ subtle mannerisms can give you an extra edge in evaluating who you should hire.

2. Identify evidence of high and low EQ behaviors.

Once you learn to identify behaviors of four emotional intelligence skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management skills, you are a giant step ahead. For example, a candidate who repeats a question back to you to confirm he understood it correctly is demonstrating good relationship management.

Piecing many more small behaviours in an interview paints a clear picture of who you should hire. If you have candidates with the same level of technical skills, then these EQ skills are the deciding factor over who is the best candidate.

3. Interview OUTSIDE of the interview

Pay special attention to how candidates behave before, during, and after the interview. How do they treat your employees? Small gestures provide valuable information on how a candidate will fit in with the company’s culture, as well as how they’ll treat your clients.

This is also a chance for you to gauge their potential, other than what's written on their resume. After all, you should prioritise a candidate's potential over experience in most cases.

4. Ask probin​g questions

A lot of interviewers have the same question bank they use for all candidate interviews, with some position-specific questions provided too. You already have the candidate’s resume, and the interview is your opportunity to probe deeper and get beyond technical skills and background.

Ask layers of questions that will help you understand how the candidate adapts to change and problems.

The main key to digging deeper during an interview is to go beyond their usual responses to your questions.

When a candidate answers a question by providing an example, ask them things like why they decided to do it that way and how they would do it differently next time. Their answers will show you how self-aware they are, how they influence everyone around them, and how they seek to improve over time.

5. Gather feedback

Recognise that your current staff are going to have to work with the new employee every single day, so ask them for feedback. You should collect information from everyone who had interacted with the candidate through the hiring process. One important thing you should remember is that you are looking for someone who will complement the team as a whole, rather than just filling a skills gap. Show your current staff that you value their views and happiness at work.

Emotional intelligence is just a piece of the hiring puzzle, but it’s one of the most important ones. When you use it to find the right candidate, you minimise the risk of absorbing toxicity, poor performance, and turnover. Moreover, bringing in high-EQ individuals heightens the performance of existing employees and helps improve the work culture that you want for your organisation. 

Search for high EQ candidates with A Job Thing, your ultimate recruitment and hiring solution.

This article is based on Dr. Travis Bradberry’s “Want to Hire People Who are Emotionally Intelligent? Do These Five Things”.