EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEW

People who understand and manage their own and others' emotions make better leaders. They're able to deal with stress, overcome obstacles, and inspire others to work toward collective goals. They manage conflict with less fallout and build stronger teams. And they're generally happier at work, too. But far too many managers lack basic self-awareness and social skills. They don't recognize the impact of their own feelings and moods. They're less adaptable than they need to be. And they don't demonstrate basic empathy for others: They don't understand people's needs, which means they're unable to meet those needs.

One reason we see too little emotional intelligence in the workplace is that we don't hire for it. We hire for pedigree. We look for where someone went to school, test scores, technical skills, and certifications, not whether they build great teams or get along with others. And we hire for intellect.

But we also need people who can deal with change, understand and motivate others, and manage positive as well as negative emotions to create an environment where people can be at their best. The problem is that we struggle to assess emotional intelligence (EI) when hiring, even when we spend a fortune on personality tests and search firms. But you can indeed hire for emotional intelligence -- and it doesn't have to be too costly. Start with these dos and don'ts.

Don't:

• Use personality tests as a proxy for EI. Most of these tests attempt to measure what they say they do: personality. They don't measure specific competencies of emotional intelligence such as self-awareness, positive outlook, achievement orientation, empathy or inspirational leadership.

• Use a self-report test. There are two reasons these don't work. First, if a person is not self-aware, how can he possibly assess his own emotional intelligence? And if he is self-aware, and knows what he's missing, is he really going to tell the truth when trying to get a job?.

• Use a 360-degree feedback instrument, even if it measures EI competencies (as the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory does). A tool like 360-degree feedback ought to be used for development, not evaluation. When these instruments are used to evaluate, people game them by carefully selecting the respondents.

Do:

• Get references and talk to them. Letters of reference simply aren't enough for you to understand your candidate's EI. When you talk with a reference, you can ask specific and pointed questions about how the candidate demonstrated various EI competencies. Get lots of examples, with lots of detail. Specifically, ask for examples of how your candidate treats other people.

• Interview for emotional intelligence. This sounds easy and many people think they're already doing so. But we aren't, much of the time. That's because we allow people to be vague in their responses and we fail to ask good follow-up questions. Even when we ask candidates directly about EI or EI-related competencies, they talk about an idealized notion of themselves rather than how they really behave. To overcome this obstacle, you can use behavioral event interviewing.

Behavioral event interviewing is a powerful way to learn about people's competencies and to see how they demonstrate those competencies on the job. Here's what you do:

Start the interview by making the candidate as comfortable as possible. The goal here is to make the interview feel conversational, informal and warm. This tone will help to ensure that you get the truth. Then, ask a couple of traditional questions about the person's background and experience.

Now you're ready to start the behavioral event portion of the interview. Ask the person to think about a recent situation at work that included a difficult challenge that she and others had to solve. Encourage your candidate to pick a situation where she's the "protagonist." And, ask her to choose a situation that was ultimately successful -- one that made her feel proud. Encourage her to tell the story briefly at first. Then, go over the entire story, asking specific questions about what she thought, felt and did throughout.

Now, ask for a story about an unsuccessful situation, one that felt like a failure and that your candidate learned something from. Again, ask for a brief overview and then get the details.

Finally, you want to leave your candidate feeling good about you and the interview so seek yet another positive, successful story.

This interview technique allows you to ask for and hear details about how the candidate thinks in situations that involve stress, challenges and other people. You also get information about how they felt during the situation. At the very least this tells you if the person is aware of his feelings. You're also likely to hear how the person managed these feelings, and the extent to which she was aware of her impact on others (all of which adds up to EI).

Behavioral event interviewing isn't magic, and it takes practice to get enough detail in each story. Don't worry about asking the person to go back over portions of the story. Rather, try to get them to tell you the story from a couple of vantage points -- what she thought, what she felt, and then what she actually did. Take your time: This isn't the kind of interview you can do in half an hour. But the time is well spent.

If you're able to "see" your candidate's EI in action, you'll make a better hire. Or you'll pass. Either way you're doing yourself and your organization a big favor.