Emotional Intelligence in Hiring: 5 Interview Questions Every Leader Must Ask

Episode 88: Emotional Intelligence in Hiring: 5 Interview Questions Every Leader Must Ask

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Executive Leadership Coach & Corporate Relationship Consultant - shares with you...

• the five critical interview questions that reveal a candidate's emotional intelligence (EQ) and ability to handle workplace challenges, such as managing conflict and receiving constructive criticism. (Essential Interview Questions)
• how prioritizing EQ in hiring can enhance communication, collaboration, and leadership within your organization, ultimately fostering a positive company culture. (Improving Team Dynamics)
• the ineffective questions that many leaders ask and the powerful alternatives you can ask to find candidates who align with your team's values and can navigate difficult situations effectively. (Transforming Hiring Practices)

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Transcript

Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the Holly Hibbard Show.
I am your host, Holly.
I am appreciative of you being here as always.
Today, we're going to dive into the topic of hiring, specifically the interview portion of hiring people.
Now, if you are listening to this episode and you're thinking, well, I'm not in a position where I am the person who is directly hiring other folks or maybe your organization is not in a season of hiring right now, I want you to possibly listen to this instead as a way to ask certain questions to determine the emotional intelligence level of the people around you.
So in theory, I don't want you to assume that just because someone doesn't have an answer to certain questions that they are not emotionally intelligent.
However, in theory, if they have certain responses to certain questions that are asked strategically, whether during an interview for a position or just an everyday conversation or in a quarterly review or what wherever that conversation takes you, it can reveal something about that person, their willingness to lead, how they lead others, how competent and or confident they are in their ability.
So today, we're exploring emotional intelligence and hiring, specifically five interview questions every leader must ask.
And at the end of this episode, I'm going to give you a little bonus and give you a few questions that are really awful to ask instead.
Questions that you probably have asked or have been asked during an interview or a review, and they don't reveal very much to you about the person that you're interviewing.
And I'll tell you why when we get there.
So that'll be a fun little bonus at the end.
So first things first, hiring the right person isn't just about skills and experience.
It's about emotional intelligence.
And if you've been listening to my show for a while, you know, that emotional intelligence to me is often the missing link that is either not present within an organization, not represented by the company or organization, or just no one's really paying attention to it at all.
People undervalue how important it is.
In fact, emotional intelligence is often labeled as soft skills and I think that name doesn't do it any justice because a lot of folks will see the word soft and think, well, that's weak or that's passive and that's not the kind of dynamic that we want in our business.
So they disregard it altogether.
So I'm gonna share with you, like I said, five powerful interview questions that can help you assess a candidate's emotional intelligence or their EQ, their emotional quotient, before they even potentially step into the role or go one step further in the interviewing process.
Why this matters is because employees with high emotional intelligence, they excel in teamwork, they excel in communication, they do very well in leadership positions, even if they're not interviewing to be a leader, they have the potential to grow into that down the road, which is part of retention, which is part of professional development.
We want to take our best people and support them in growing in the company to where they want to be.
If you are hiring for emotional intelligence, this is also going to reduce conflict, because people who show higher EQs or higher levels of emotional intelligence, they are more likely to respond instead of react and create putting that in an environment.
This improves retention and it fosters a strong company culture.
Lastly, this is important because leaders who understand understand how to identify emotional intelligence in certain applicants or in the people they are managing, those leaders, they are building stronger and more resilient teams.
And who doesn't want that?
When you feel there is a strength in number, even if it's just a few people on a team, but you feel there is strength, power, a sense of contribution there, people stick around for that.
They stick around for that emotional experience that comes with the day to day of doing the job that they were hired to do.
So let's cut to the five best interview questions that you can be asking to assess emotional intelligence.
Number one, here is the question.
Tell me about a time you made a mistake at work.
How did you handle it?
I think the key here is the second part of that phrase, how did you handle it?
Because if you stop speaking after you ask the first part, tell me about a time you made a mistake at work, or if you ask it in the phrase of, tell me about a time you made a mistake at work, and what did you do?
The person is more likely going to answer about the action that they took, but by asking, how did you handle it?
This is inferring that we want to know more about emotionally the tactic or the strategy they used to navigate that stressful moment, go through that frustration, problem solve while they're irritated or not getting along with someone.
So this question, what it can reveal to you is the person's ability to take ownership and learn from a failure, how they regulated their emotions in that stressful situation.
Do they even talk about their ability to regulate their emotions or their emotion at all, or do they cut to the chase of what they did and not how they handled it?
This question can also reveal whether this person is likely to blame others or take responsibility for what went wrong, even if it's just ownership or responsibility just for the portion that they took action themselves with, but it all counts.
Some red flags that can be revealed to you in the answer to this question, if you hear the applicant and their response blaming external factors without acknowledging their own role at all, that is a red flag when somebody is answering this question.
Another red flag in them answering this question is let's say the applicant or the person interviewing, they minimize the mistake.
They say it really wasn't that big of a deal or they, worse yet, say that they've never made a mistake.
They come back and say, well, I've never really made a mistake at work.
Everything goes relatively smoothly.
That is a red flag.
There's something there to be cautious of and with.
That brings me to interview question number two, that you can be asking to assess emotional intelligence or again, to get to know your colleagues and your teammates at a different level.
The next question is number two, how do you handle working with a difficult colleague?
How do you handle working with a difficult colleague?
And if you're noticing the wording so far, notice that question one and this question both use the word handle.
Specifically, they both say, how did you handle it?
How do you handle?
So I like that there's a commonality there already.
So this question, how do you handle working with a difficult colleague?
This is a realistic situation.
Right?
We're not always going to like and or get along with the people that we are working alongside of.
So in their answer to this question, this can reveal to us this person's conflict resolution skills and their ability to navigate the workplace relationships, whether they're people that they work directly with or indirectly with.
It also can reveal to us how this person, similar to the first question I gave you, how they regulate their emotions or don't.
More specifically, do they get defensive about a difficult colleague or are they seeking a solution?
This question will also reveal this person's communication style.
So for example, do you think that they might be more, more likely to gossip or avoid the issue or or will they address the issue directly?
Or as I've said at times, go directly to the source.
Go talk to the person who can actually do something about the issue at hand.
So a person who's answering the question, how do you handle working with a difficult colleague?
Here's an example of a strong answer.
This person might say something like, I once worked with someone who had a very different communication style than me, and instead of getting frustrated, I set up a one on one conversation to understand their perspective and we ended up finding a middle ground and improved our collaboration.
That's a green flag answer.
That's a great response.
This person in that example, they are showing that they have a conflict resolution skill where they are not defensive, but they are seeking solution and they are addressing the issue directly.
Now a person answering this question, if they answer it and you're looking for red flags, a red flag would be they avoid answering the question altogether.
Deflect, dodge, get away from this question.
Okay?
So if you ask the question, how do you handle working with a diff a difficult colleague and they avoid answering the question, that is a red flag.
Another red flag would be that they describe a conflict, but they position themselves as the victim.
That the conflict happened to them and somehow they were not a part of it.
That would be another red flag in this scenario.
The third question that you can ask in an interview situation to assess a person's emotional intelligence is, can you share a time when you received constructive criticism?
How did you respond?
So this question specifically about how this person is receiving constructive criticism And I like that it asks about how they receive constructive criticism and not how they receive feedback.
So this is question is very specific in that we wanna get into the mind of this person and not really get into it, but we wanna hear from the perspective of this person of how do you handle it, how did you respond when someone is being critical, but it's constructive, meaning the person that is giving them the criticism is well intentioned.
So, the applicant or interviewer or interviewee rather, their response to this question is going to reveal whether they're coachable or open to feedback.
Because constructive criticism, that for a lot of people is like an invitation to defend themselves.
But people who are coachable, who are open to feedback, who see it and might not like to hear it, but at least can see it as, okay, this is a way that I can improve and get better, that's a green flag.
This question also can show you their self awareness and are they willing or able to adapt?
Meaning, if they're getting a criticism, do they deflect it?
Do they deny it?
Do they run from it?
Or can they at least look at it and say, okay.
I need to process that and think about that, and I appreciate getting that feedback.
This question to answer can also tell you how they handle perceived negative input.
Right?
Because criticism comes in all different forms and even well intentioned criticism, constructive criticism, people will hear it the wrong way all the time, but we have to have it there.
We have to have a way in the workplace to tell people how they could improve upon what they are currently doing.
So here are some red flags.
When this person is answering this question of how they receive constructive criticism, a red flag would be this person claiming that they've never received criticism.
I'm sorry, what?
Like, who has never received criticism?
That is strategy.
That is somebody running or escaping getting that kind of feedback.
Right?
That ultimately is a red flag means that this person is not coachable.
They they wanna get away from this as quickly as possible.
Another red flag in answering this question is if the person takes the feedback personally and they make it about them as a person and they get defensive.
So this is a very common thing.
When we give feedback to people in a professional setting or if I were to receive feedback from somebody, let's say, and when I hear them say, your voice could have been stronger, I might hear that out of an insecurity, let's say.
They might say your voice could have been stronger, and my brain might translate that into you have a weak voice.
Now, they're trying to tell me that my voice could be stronger, and in response, I could ask them, can you give me an example of that?
Or can you explain to me what that means to you?
Because having a stronger voice could be having more clarity, it could be volume, it could be enunciation.
I don't know what they mean unless I ask.
But if I let my mind go to that insecure place and immediately get defensive and think, I don't have a weak voice.
My voice is strong enough.
Now we're not curious.
Now we're skipping curiosity and going right to defensive and that would be an example of a red flag situation in this case.
The fourth interview question that you can ask to really assess an applicant's emotional intelligence is this, how do you handle stress or pressure in the workplace?
Now, what's funny about this is I think on the surface, most folks might think that asking this question is going to give us insight into how they handle stress or pressure maybe in their personal life or when they are on their own.
But this does reveal to us in their answer their coping mechanism in a high pressure situation.
And the asker of the question is acknowledging that, you know, when we're feeling the stress or the pressure, we're not decompressing or de stressing only at home.
We have to have coping mechanisms for these situations that can happen at work during working hours, because that amount of energy that is going to the stress or going to the pressure is taking away mental bandwidth and energy away from the project at hand.
So this can also reveal to us their answer to this question, how they regulate their emotions, namely how long they let themselves sit in this puddle and crumble when when things are feeling really terrible.
Can they stay composed and find a way to cope in the moment or do they completely fall apart?
And that is part of emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation means getting your emotions under control.
It does not mean squashing them.
It does not mean ignoring them.
But folks who have more emotional regulation skills oftentimes have the same skills as people who are new to learning those skills.
The difference is folks who've been practicing it for a longer amount of time, they're simply faster at it.
So they can be under a high pressure situation, a high stress situation, and they might be able to say, you know what?
I need ten minutes in my office or I need five minutes in my office or I need to step outside the building and walk a lap and come back.
They can get their emotions back to baseline, to neutral, within minutes.
But people who are new to learning emotional regulation skills, they're they will be ones who would be more likely to say, I gotta go home.
I'm gonna take a half day.
They're gonna completely check out, because they don't have the coping mechanisms for work hours.
So I like that this question is revealing to us whether they are relying on healthy or unhealthy strategies to again get their emotions back to that baseline when things are really stressful or under a lot of pressure.
So an example of a strong answer to this question, somebody might say something like, when I'm under pressure, I take a moment to prioritize my tasks, communicate with my team and set boundaries to stay focused.
And I also make sure to step away briefly to reset if I need to.
That's a strong answer because this person is saying that they have an actionable thing that they can do, prioritizing their tasks, letting people know, stepping away if they need to, and they're not only relying on one of them.
They have a small menu of options and they know it.
Red flags with this answer is if you ask the person about how they handle stress or pressure at work and they say, I just push through it.
They don't give you any insight into a strategy of what pushing through it looks like.
That is a red flag.
It's like a pressure cooker because if that stress or that pressure builds up throughout the day, throughout a week, throughout a quarter, throughout a project, it just gets bigger and bigger.
And have you ever been in a space, a room, your office, and somebody's having a horrible day and they walk into the room and you feel everything just, ugh, you just feel things get bad, you feel things get dark, you feel different.
It's because we feel each other's energy.
We feel each other's mood, whether we want to recognize it or not.
So if this person is holding on to that stress and that pressure and they don't have the tools to get back to a baseline, there is no way around it.
They are going to impact how well you and your team can get things done.
The other red flag for this question of how they handle stress or pressure in the workplace is they don't acknowledge stress management at all.
They might say something like well, you know, I have a stress ball on my desk, I can just squeeze the stress ball and everything will be fine.
Absolutely not.
Like, absolutely not.
I get the giggles when people give out stress balls because I had actually never met somebody that said that using a stress ball is the number one or number five or number 20 thing that they do to manage their stress.
So if somebody is saying they they don't have stress at all or they say something like, well, I'm pretty relaxed.
I've I handle stress pretty well.
I handle pressure pretty well, or but they don't describe how they manage their stress, that's a red flag.
They might say they handle the pressure or the stress really well, but they're gonna give you some some further evidence of that.
You know, like, oh, I go for a run every morning before work or I meditate at my desk before before I start my day or I listen to some music while I'm working.
They're gonna give you something in addition to just saying, I got it.
I can handle it.
Lastly, number five.
A question that you can ask if you want to know an applicant's emotional intelligence is this: What's one thing that you've done to improve your emotional intelligence in the past year?
So this question is really seeing if their EQ or their emotional intelligence is even on the radar.
Are they even conscious of their mental health, their emotional well-being, how they communicate, how they are in relationships?
Is it even on the map?
Maybe they say, can you tell me what you mean by emotional intelligence?
Maybe they've never heard it that way.
So you could reword it and use the word soft skills instead?
Sure.
How would you improve how have you worked to improve your soft skills in the past year?
That they should know.
They should be able to come up with a level of personal and or professional development that they have done.
So the answer to this question is going to reveal to you whether they value self improvement at all, personal growth at all.
It's also going to reveal to you their awareness of the importance of their emotional intelligence in leadership, whether they're in a leadership role or not, they still have to lead themselves.
They still have to create discipline in some way.
They still need to be reliable on all accounts.
And so their emotions are part of who they are.
Their mentality is important.
Their mindset is important.
This question's answer can also to reveal to you this person's willingness to proactively develop their soft skills, their emotional intelligence.
Okay?
So sometimes we'll use those two words interchangeably.
I think, generally speaking, the corporate world is more familiar with the term soft skills, but emotional intelligence is coming up in terms of usage and I think the likelihood of more people hearing that term, I think the likelihood is increasing.
A strong answer to that question might be something like, I started keeping a journal to track my emotional responses at work, and that helped me to reflect before I react to something.
I also read the book Emotional Intelligence two point o, and I applied some of those techniques when I'm working with clients.
That would be an example of somebody who's put in the effort.
They have one tool that they can implement when they need to.
In this case, it would be the journal and they've read a book or reading a book or even know a book exists.
They know they know what you're asking, which is really important.
And a red flag with this question would be they don't have an answer or they seem really confused by the question.
So they might not know emotional intelligence.
Do they not know soft skills either?
That's a red flag.
We want to know that this person has some idea that work is more than just what you do.
It's who you are.
Not your full identity, but it's how you show up in the workplace is what I mean to say.
And the other red flag with this question is this person is focused solely on their technical skills, right, instead of interpersonal growth because to work in a team dynamic is really important.
It is very unlikely that if you are interviewing somebody in a role that it's very unlikely that they're going to work in a silo, that they're completely by themselves, because if they're being interviewed, that means that they are not a solopreneur.
They are not a one man or one woman show.
They are going to have interactions with other people.
So those are the five questions.
So again, the five best interview questions were number one, tell me about a time that you made a mistake at work, and how did you handle it?
Number two, how do you handle working with a difficult colleague?
Number three, can you share a time when you received constructive criticism, and how did you respond?
Number four, how do you handle stress or pressure in the workplace?
And number five, what's one thing you've done to improve your emotional intelligence in the past year?
And again, the year part there of making sure that it's been happening recently and likely intentionally as well.
So, as promised, I also want to share with you the worst interview questions that you can ask if you want to know, what a person's emotional intelligence is like or their interest in their ability to hone those skills.
So number one, don't ask the person, hey, do you consider yourself emotionally intelligent?
That is gonna be taken as an insult.
Even by people who know what emotional intelligence is, that could be taken as an insult.
And people who don't know what emotional intelligence are or what it is, they might hear it just as, 'Hey, do you know what are you smart?' because they're only gonna hear the word intelligent and they're gonna think that you're you're asking if they think that they're smart.
And they don't understand the difference between an IQ and their EQ.
So that is something.
So that question, it fails in the first place because it's a leading question because that means that your candidate, you're kind of leading them to just say, yeah, yeah, I am emotionally intelligent.
It doesn't assess an actual behavior or a self awareness.
So a better alternative that you could say instead would be, tell me about a time when you had to manage your emotions at work.
Now we're getting to something more specific, where they can tell you a real world example.
Yes and no questions, by the way.
Questions that are only answered with the word yes or the word no typically are not good, interview questions, FYI.
I think most people know that, but if you don't, now you know.
And if you are in a leadership role or you're trying to get to know people or you're out in your personal life and trying to get to know people, yes or no questions don't get you very far, just so you know.
Another question that's just terrible to ask during an interview is, what would your previous manager say about you?
So this question doesn't work because, first of all, it's encouraging a rehearsed generic response, because I'm sure some folks have given a lot of thought to what their previous manager or employer would say about them.
And this question also fails because the candidate that you're interviewing, they might just say what they think you want to hear.
Right?
They're only going to give you the highlight reel of what their previous manager would say about you.
So a better alternative to this question could be something like, what feedback have you received in a past performance or in a past performance review that helped you grow?
So now the person has to think back to their previous role or even jobs from years ago and think back to what they heard that then motivated them or inspired them to become a better version of themselves, and that's really fun to hear the answer to that.
And lastly, a terrible question to ask on an interview.
Again, this is a yes or no question.
Are you a team player?
I mean, come on.
Who who's gonna say who's gonna say no to that?
I mean or they'll say, I mean, even people who aren't team players and really like being alone, they're still gonna say, yes.
I'm a team player because we all know that's the correct answer in the answer book.
But, again, there's no space there for the person to give more insight to that.
So, again, almost everyone's gonna say yes.
That's why this question failed, and it doesn't reveal how they actually collaborate with other people.
So they say, yes.
I'm a team player, but that's the end of it.
So a better alternative to this question could be, tell me about a successful team project that you were a part of and what was your role in it?
So now they have to think back to a successful time that they were part of a team and give you the intel on what it was they did for that project specifically.
So, that's a fun little bonus of the worst questions to ask, but again the feature of this episode are the five questions you should be asking when you want to get to know an applicant or a candidate for a job for in the hiring process, you want to get to know their emotional intelligence level and what they think about themselves.
So here are your takeaways for today.
So first of all, as I've said, hiring for emotional intelligence, this is gonna be a game changer for building a high performance team.
And so the next time you conduct an interview or, you know, or you're giving a quarterly review or getting to know somebody that you have been working with for a long time and you just feel like you don't really understand them or know them, think of a question that you would normally ask and swap out at least one of those questions with one from today's episode and just see how much more insightful their responses are going to become because of that.
So, I'm really grateful and appreciative for you listening to this episode today.
If you found this episode helpful, I would love for you to drop a comment below.
Which question would you like to know the answer to from an applicant?
Would it be about, I'm trying to think of now, like every single one of them.
Would you want to know things about how they handle a difficult colleague or how they handle mistakes, how do they take criticism, you know, how have they grown their emotional intelligence, several options here for you to choose from and even in the episode bonus at the end, I gave you a couple extras.
So drop me a comment and tell me what we see?
Now I can't talk.
It's time it's time to end the episode because I can't talk anymore, clearly.
I'm tripping over my tongue.
Drop me a comment and tell me which question you would love to know the answer to from people you're interviewing or people that are already on your team.
I can't wait to hear from you.
Thank you so much again for listening and until next time, I will talk to you next time.