in this video we're going to look at emotional intelligence interview questions and answers
so that you can demonstrate high emotional intelligence in your interview i'll also share
some key things you'll need to avoid and some actions you can take to increase your emotional
intelligence in different areas i'm Amri Celeste an hr recruitment specialist and an interview
coach with over 10 years hiring experience and i make videos to help you secure the job that
you want so if you're job hunting do like and subscribe so first emotional intelligence is
the ability to be aware of your own emotions and to regulate and manage them so that you can have
the best life experience and connect with others in the most effective way emotional intelligence
is important for any job that interacts with other people which i imagine is almost every job
so unless you'll be working in total isolation it helps to demonstrate emotional intelligence in
your interview now there are some jobs where they might assess emotional intelligence a little more
closely such as hr therapy and counselling related roles but it's also highly effective in so many
other roles such as customer service complaints handling sales is another one it's very difficult
to be an exceptional salesperson without the ability to connect with others effectively
so daniel goleman is the american psychologist that helped to popularize the concept of emotional
intelligence and these are the five elements of emotional intelligence according to him
so the first is self-awareness a couple of examples of self-awareness interview questions
are what is your biggest area for improvement and another one is can you tell me about a time
when you failed so these questions are not only assessing for the actual answer like the area for
improvement and what the failure was but they're also assessing for your perception of these things
so for example one person might have a goal to get promoted within a year and if it takes three years
they might consider that to be a failure but someone else might have a goal to get promoted
within five years and get promoted within four so even though it took longer they may not see that
as a failure even though it's essentially the same goal just with a different time expectation which
changes each person's perception of failure in this instance so you'll be showing high
emotional intelligence if you can demonstrate that you understand different perspectives of
the same thing what to avoid if you're highly self-aware then you can assess yourself accurately
so if someone is overly modest and they're always putting themselves down or downplaying their big
achievements or on the other side someone is overly arrogant and come across as very entitled
to the job then they wouldn't be demonstrating self-awareness so i answered the question tell
me about a time when you failed in my behavioral interview questions and answers video where i gave
an example of somebody who was set a revenue target that they didn't meet but the important
part was that they went on to explain that from one perspective it's a failure because they didn't
meet the target but they also gained multiple skills in their hard effort to meet the deadline
and reach the revenue target so skills like networking meeting new contacts and creative new
ways of working that they hadn't considered before so from a shifted perspective there were successes
it just depends on how you look at it what to include in your answer to show self-awareness to
show self-awareness in your answer let's take the failure question for example so what you want to
do here is show a vulnerability so show something that you really did struggle with in your life so
don't give anything like you know i haven't i have never had any failures because i'm a perfectionist
or anything like that um i hear that more times than you would think um just remember that if
you're giving an example of something that you struggled with remember to bring it back to how
you overcame it or how you're working to overcome it and what you've put in place to foster that
actions to increase self-awareness you could also include a couple of solid activities you do to
check your self-awareness like keeping a diary or a journal or taking time for quiet self-reflection
each day self-regulation self-regulation is the ability to understand and control or regulate
our emotional response so first and foremost you need to be able to understand that it is an
emotional response and recognize that many people present feelings as facts when they're feeling
highly emotional for example someone might have an opinion that a person is rude and state that as a
fact and then argue against the idea that that's just their opinion and that other people may not
see that person as rude a couple of examples of interview questions relating to self-regulation
are how do you handle difficult colleagues or give me an example of a time when you've had to
deal with a particularly difficult colleague or co-worker or describe the most difficult person
you worked with another is tell me about a time when you got angry at work so what to include in
your answer to show your ability to self-regulate so give an example of a situation that triggered a
negative emotion and then show how you stop that negative emotion from turning into a negative
response for example let's say that you had a colleague that was always late or didn't complete
tasks properly and that created more work for you or for the rest of the team you can explain that
you found this really annoying because it didn't demonstrate teamwork which is important to you
but you recognized that you were feeling irritated and you realized that you didn't know what was
causing the lateness or the poor work quality so your approach was to communicate with them
in a way where you were not accusing them but you were honest with them about the situation and the
way that it was affecting you you asked questions and you made some suggestions for things that they
could do in the future this shows your emotional maturity and your emotional control what to avoid
pretty easy with this one you just want to avoid blame because when you're answering questions
like these you're demonstrating self-regulation not regulation of other people or other people's
emotions so whether the person was at fault or not you need to demonstrate that you assessed what you
could have done differently so avoid using your answer as an opportunity to relive the situation
and blame the other person actions to increase your ability to self-regulate a couple of things
you might do to demonstrate your ability to self-regulate are things like holding yourself
accountable taking responsibility for a situation where you did something wrong and give examples of
this but also active exercises to practice staying calm whether exercising breathing yoga meditation
or simple awareness of your feelings when you're experiencing high emotional responses if you're
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youtube motivation a motivation related interview question could be something as simple as how do
you stay motivated i would say motivation falls under the last category of self-regulation because
your ability to stay motivated is something that needs to be regulated and managed so if you think
about any idea that you've had with a burst of motivation like starting a business a new diet
reading every day working out in majority of cases it's a phase that doesn't last without careful
self-regulation but by tracking and monitoring your plans you can keep steady motivation but
it takes work to develop that mental perspective that allows you to constantly find things to keep
your motivation high but if you can do that it shows high emotional intelligence what to
include in your answer to show self-motivation so some of the things you can include in your
answer are things like actively seeking out ways to shift your perspective to the most positive
aspect such as books or online content that align with a motivated outlook but also regularly
reviewing your career milestones to show that you keep track of where you are against where you want
to be another thing to demonstrate is optimism i find that people that are consistently successful
over a long period of time they have a natural habit of optimism or they develop that habit
there's a quote i love by jim carrey that explains why optimism is so important he said
i'm just making a conscious choice to perceive challenges as something beneficial so that i can
deal with them in the most productive way and do you think that you could consistently handle
challenges or stay motivated if you saw every challenge as something that was almost impossible
to overcome a couple of quick ways to increase motivation one is to use 90 day goals in intervals
write them down visualize them and try to make sure they are smart which is specific measurable
attainable realistic and time-bound also own your success and this means taking responsibility for
celebrating successes in life actively look for things to be grateful for and celebrate such as
sticking to a workout plan or diet meeting new people finishing a book when you start to do this
it automatically increases your gratitude which is another great way to increase motivation and let
me know in the comments if you have any questions about emotional intelligence interview questions
empathy empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another but when you're
doing that it doesn't mean that you're getting emotionally wrapped up and carried away with that
person or what they're going through it's just understanding so that when you're interacting
with them or making decisions that affect them you're doing it with understanding so some
empathy related questions are questions like what do you do when someone comes to you with a problem
or tell me about a time when this has happened but they could also be about how you impacted others
emotionally for example tell me about a time when you've coached someone through a difficult time
tell me about a time when you had to deliver difficult news
what to include in your answer to show empathy when you're answering empathy related questions
always try to include how you put yourself in someone else's position mentally and what that
did for you so how it shaped how you interacted with them or things that you did or didn't do due
to showing empathy towards that person an example i used in my behavioral video that i mentioned
earlier was a person who had a colleague whose quality of work had declined and it turned out
that they were going through a divorce so they decided to take an empathetic approach and give
that person the time and the space that they needed to improve their work so any examples
where you can show the empathy behind your actions is a strong example actions to increase empathy
so this can include things like paying attention to non-verbal communication so body language eye
contact facial expressions gestures posture and body orientation like someone turning away as
they're speaking or being protective or defensive by crossing their arms these type of actions
give you an idea of what someone might be feeling without them actively speaking words
if you do struggle with interview questions and answers you can grab a copy of my top 20
interview answers guide it's totally free and it's packed with answers to difficult questions
like can you give me an example of a time when you thought outside the box how do you handle pressure
at work and what would you do if we didn't give you the job plus many more i've also covered what
you should be asking your interviewers at the end of your interview so as i mentioned it's
free you can get yours by clicking the link in the description below this video social skills strong
social skills are a key indicator of emotional intelligence some people have a natural ability
to socialize and this is something you can develop even if it doesn't come naturally so your ability
to socialize with someone is an indicator of emotional intelligence also your understanding of
what people like what motivates them and what they find desirable some interview questions related to
social skills are tell me about a time you had to convince or persuade a client a customer or
a manager round to your way of thinking another one is how do you build relationships at work
some examples you can give to show emotional intelligence relating to socializing is conflict
resolution so any time you solved a conflict at work i also give a full example answer to that
one in my top 10 situational interview questions and answers video so i'll also link that video
in the description below this video how to demonstrate social skills in your interview
one trick to socialize well is to ask questions questions that show your interest in the company
the role the values and particularly questions about your interviewer and their journey
i give some examples of questions that you should be asking your interviewer in your interview in
my top 20 interview questions and answers guide another socializing tip is offering compliments
genuine compliments where appropriate not too many one of the most popular books on improving social
skills is how to win friends and influence people there's a whole section in there about being
generous with praise the value of charm and being genuinely interested in other people because these
are powerful skills when it comes to socializing actions to improve social skills you can also
talk about anything you do actively to build and continuously improve your social skills such as
communication courses networking and this could be at work or at events outside of work thank
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