Here we will see a sample of eight of the most effective situational interview questions:

• Imagine you are the new Project Manager of your team. But, your team members object to your vision and ideas for the new project. What specifically would you do to address their objections?
  • If your candidate has emotional intelligence, he will ask for feedback about his ideas and take into account everyone's opinion prior to beginning the new project. And he will assure that changes can be made during the execution of the project if the team members are not satisfied with the outcomes. He will have meetings with the team to discuss his plans and show how the company will benefit with the changes and the final project.
• Imagine that you are responsible for an important project and that near the completion phase, you are assigned to another important project that needs to be completed immediately. How do you prioritize and handle the multi-tasking situation?
  • A candidate with emotional intelligence will: first, before beginning the new project, assess what needs to be completed; second, estimate how long it will take; third, assess what resources are needed to successfully complete the project; and, fourth, if after the assessment, he concludes that the new project cannot be completed by the deadline, he will request that the project be assigned to someone else.
• Imagine one of your subordinates is performing below average. What specific actions could you take to help him?
  • A candidate with emotional intelligence would talk with the subordinate, with empathy and an open mind. His priority would to be identify if the factors contributing to the poor productivity are work related or personal. If the candidate does not have coaching or counseling training, he should advise his subordinate to look for the coach or counselor of the organization to help him overcome his problems and get back to being a good performance worker.

• Imagine that you responsible for ensuring that a very important project is finished before Christmas. You need all your workers giving their best to make sure the project is completed by the deadline Meanwhile, a co-worker decides to take an entire week of work off to enjoy vacation time. How do you address the problem.
  • A good candidate would: first, find out how much vacation time the worker used during the year and, second, ask the worker to postpone his vacations to after the project is finished as all the workers are needed to meet the deadline.
• Imagine that you finished one of your projects before the deadline. And now the client is claiming that the project is not meeting all the project specifications. What would you do?
  • A candidate with emotional intelligence would: first, before handling the project, review his project planning to make sure that all the project specifications - time, requirements, deadlines, budget - met the approved specifications. If he found something went wrong, he would bring the issue to the attention of his superiors and ask for a realistic extension of time to make sure the project met all the specifications. Or, if he spotted that actually something went wrong, he would review his project planning process to see what went wrong, and why the project was not done on time according to specs. He would take the necessary actions to assure it never happened again.
• Imagine that you don't agree with the viewpoint of your supervisor on how to deal with a problem. How would you handle the situation?
  • An emotional intelligent candidate would have used his empathy to view the problem with his supervisor's perspective. Even if after seeing the problem with his supervisor's perspective he could not agree with the solution proposed, he would suggest new solutions, until they find one that would be a good win-win situation for both.
• Imagine that you are hired, and that you need to take important job-related decisions? What actions would you take?
  • An emotional intelligent candidate would take in consideration three perspectives, before making the decisions: first, he would assess if the decision has a negative impact in the company (bottom line, name, reputation); second, he would assess how the decision fits within the scope of the company's core values; and third, he would determine how the decision would benefit the company.
• Imagine that your boss is absolutely wrong about an important work-related issue. What would you do?
  • An emotional intelligent candidate would assess the personality of the boss.
  • If the boss doesn't like to have his authority challenged, is narrow-minded, doesn't like to receive criticism or others opinions, just be polite, and try to understand the situation from his perspective.
  • If the boss is open-minded, likes to receive outside opinions and suggestions and constructive criticism, first validate his perspective. Then make suggestions that would be better, more efficient, and more effective to accomplish what he wants.