5 Tips to Hire An Emotionally Intelligent Candidate during COVID-19 Outbreak

I am wondering how some people seem to have an unlimited amount of success both in their personal and professional lives. This is because they possess high Emotional Intelligence. A crisis can emerge in many different forms, and it often strikes without warning. Many big organizations have formulated contingency plans for emergencies like COVID-19. With a complete lockdown in most of the countries, it is challenging to access the emotional intelligence of candidates without meeting them.

Emotional intelligence became popular in 1995 by David Goleman. It covers five traits: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills, and motivation.

As an HR professional, you should try to understand the candidate's motivation and behavior. Thus, it makes sense to incorporate EQ into our practice.

This blog will help you to learn how to identify the emotional intelligence of a candidate at the time of recruitment, especially when you cannot have a face-to-face interview.

How to Find An Emotionally Intelligent Candidate?

Recruiting emotionally intelligent candidates is a bit tough task. Everyone shows their positive side during interviews and in the first few months of the job. But it wears off once they settle down. So, it is very important to search for those candidates who possess the qualities that your organization values. Now the nature of workplaces is also changing rapidly with the sudden shock of pandemic COVID-19. Trust these tips will help you to get started at hiring emotionally intelligent candidates:

1.   Use Behaviour Interview Techniques:

The recruitment process is like a game where the chances of hit and miss are equal. The interviewer conducts an interview that is based on the requirement and needs of the job. It may happen that a highly qualified candidate leaves behind frustrated colleagues, unsatisfied clients, and proves to be a disastrous decision. So, it is important to include behavioral interviews to know the emotional intelligence level of the candidates. The perfect way is to create a hypothetical situation and ask them to put themselves in the situation. With this role play, you can observe their reactions to different situations. This exercise will help you to understand the emotional intelligence of the candidate easily. 

2.   Use of AI Hiring Tool:

HR professionals need a solution to speed up the recruitment process because hiring is one of the areas which can be badly affected due to pandemic. With the help of AI, professionals can reduce their burden significantly by automating the tasks.

There are many software that help recruiters to find the perfect fit for the organization. AI tools like resume parsing software can help in screening the right candidate by extracting the data from resumes and putting it in its pre-designed fields. Due to the pandemic outbreak, recruiters can't take face-to-face interview sessions. They can use channels such as video interviewing to read the candidate's body language, pitch tonality, and even can record the interview session to re-examine the gestures of the candidates. Such tools will help recruiters in judging the candidate's abilities.

3.   Regarding Inspirational Approach:

Asking questions on video interviewing based on inspiration, role models, goals give you a chance to observe the candidate' thoughts and how they look at the world. A person's dreams and motivations are the reflection of their personality and emotional intelligence. It also shows the mindset and how sensitive the candidate is. When an interviewer asks questions regarding such things, the candidate will answer, and there you will get the chance to know more about the candidate's inner self.

4.   Use References Benefits:

When it comes to emotional intelligence, a reference program will be a great help. With the help of the online referral portal of HR, the employees can refer their friends and colleagues from the previous organization. The employee who is already working in the organization knows the values and ethics of the organization. So, they will recommend such a candidate who is capable of keeping those values and ethics. Leveraging referral programs on a large scale will be a great tool to find the perfect fit. Appreciating the employees with referral incentives will help the organization to develop a remarkable talent pool.

5.   Maintaining Self- Management:

Self-management refers to managing oneself and resources. This includes effective controlling of the emotions, taking initiatives to act on the opportunities. Adapting the changes and maintaining a positive attitude is one of the essential traits of an individual. Such questions will help you to determine if your candidate is self-managing:

a) Asking him when he took the initiative in ongoing projects?

b) When you disagreed with your colleagues or decision, and what you did about it?

With such questions, you can learn how your candidate handle emotionally challenging situations. 

In this post, I tried to help in understanding the emotional intelligence of the candidate so that you can recruit a more suitable candidate for the job. Trust this will help you in hiring and accessing the employees as well.