Looking for emotional intelligence traits in job candidates during the interview process is not difficult--especially if you have the right questions to ask. In this section, we will start with general questions that you can use with all candidates. Then we will cover specific questions to specific job positions, where emotional intelligence is of the utmost importance.

The most effective questions to spot emotional intelligence in a candidate are:

• If you had the chance to have dinner with one of your role models or someone that inspires you, who would that be and why?
  • The answers give you a sneak peek into what are the candidate's passions and inspirations. And even the behavioral patterns the candidate respects.

• Imagine you have the chance to start tomorrow your own company. What would be the three core values?
  • The candidate's answer gives you the insight into his core values and priorities.
• As the team leader of your team, how would you help your teammates to cope with organizational changes in your company?
  • When facing organizational changes, you want to have a team leader who has self-awareness, social awareness, empathy, leadership qualities, is a change catalyst, and knows how to cope with change.
• From all the lasting friendships that you built in your former job, who are you going to miss the most?
  • Building relationships/lasting friendships is a major sign of emotional intelligence. It means that your candidate cares for others.
• Do you feel that you are still missing an important skill or expertise? What is it?
  • You want a candidate to be hungry to learn more, improve, evolve, be better than yesterday, and add value to his work and to the world. People who struggle to answers this question are the ones who think they already know it all.
• Can you teach me anything, as if it was the first time I am learning about it. It can be anything: a game, a lesson, a skill, and so on?
  • If the candidate has emotional intelligence, his answer will reveal several qualities, such as: technical ability to explain something to a person who is less knowledgeable in the subject; empathy to ask empathic questions to the person being taught (Is this making sense to you? Am I explaining myself properly?); and if the candidate takes time to think before speaking.
• We know that you had great success in your former organization. Could you tell us three factors you would attribute to your success?
  • The answer to this question will reveal if the candidate is a selfless person or a selfish "me-me-me" person. Look for the team player that brings something positive to the organization​.