A colleague sent me this interesting article on the 7 interview questions that determine emotional intelligence. Initially, as I was reading the questions, I thought they were great. I love talking about this sort of stuff, and the author is absolutely right, it does give an insight into the way that someone can answer those questions (if indeed, they are able to answer them at all). It also gives way to a very interesting discussion, and it enables you to determine if what the person says accords with your company values etc etc..
But here’s the rub. As a predictor of whether the person will perform in the role, these questions are not all that helpful. For a start — all you are really testing is whether the person can respond to the question in a thoughtful and articulate way and whether their answers accord with your own personal value set/bias. What their answers don’t tell you is whether their answers are reflective of their past behaviour, their innate personality traits or whether (kind of critically), whether they can do the job. You actually don’t even know whether they live the values they espouse or whether they’re just really good at answering these sort of questions.
The problem with these sort of interviews, is that you are lulled into feeling like you’ve have had a great conversation, without being any closer to really determining if the person is the right fit for your organisation and can do the job. These questions, by their very nature are also hard to quantify and so to compare candidates with each other.
Justin Weinhardt writes for the Leadership Lab that:
“..The fact is that it is extremely difficult to predict a candidate’s job performance. However, the use of general mental ability tests, combined with personality and integrity tests, work samples and structured interviews will more accurately help you to select the best-of-the-best candidates. This will give you the basis for a successful hire and an edge over competitors using unstructured interviews..”
This sounds like it will make the recruitment process long winded and painful. But the reality is, that having a nice unstructured chat just doesn’t work. Not only does it consume time and resources, but the cost of a poor decision can be extremely expensive, and often means that you are back to the recruitment process again sooner than you’d like or that you end up in a performance management situation.
As Justin suggests, the best way to accurately predict job performance is to use a series of different tools and apply those tools consistently across all candidates. And, as the shopping giant, Myer found out — do your due diligence on the successful candidate before you appoint them.
We are naive if we think that some people don’t lie in interviews and during the recruitment process, so it makes sense to have a robust, fair and consistent process that allows the best candidate to shine.
So, ask the questions that predict EQ. But just make sure that’s not all you do.
Until next week, happy reading.
