Emotional Intelligence Testing
Using Emotional Intelligence Testing for Recruitment
Emotional intelligence (EI or EQ) tests and tools are increasingly being used by leading organisations as part of the recruitment process for any roles that require levels of resilience or people skills such as contact centre agents, customer service reps, sales people, account managers and so on.
What is Emotional intelligence (EI or EQ)?
Emotional Intelligence can demonstrate people’s capacity to work well with others, manage stress and make effective decisions. EI is also something that can and does evolve - a person's emotional intelligence can be enhanced over time to improve individual performance and collaboration leading to better personal and business outcomes.
They are actually three key methods used to measure emotional intelligence for individuals, teams and organisations:
- A Self-report
- 360 Feedback
- Ability/performance
When used in recruitment, it is normally referring to the ability/performance component and it is assessed using an emotional intelligence test. There are numerous tests available and all are conducted online and they can be broadly categorised into four groups:
- Abilities based - assesses actual emotional ability in the same way an IQ test measures cognitive ability (e.g. how you solve emotional problems).
- Trait based - measures both emotional and social competencies for a well-rounded picture of a person's emotional intelligence and opportunities for development.
- Competency based - measure a person’s emotional intelligence competencies against expected levels related to the specific job role or function.
- Behaviour based - measures how frequently a person demonstrates emotionally intelligent behaviours and actions.
You can engage a recruitment agency with experience in emotional intelligence testing to either offer stand-alone testing or incorporated the Ei/EQ tests as part of an overall recruitment process.