8. Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence (E.Q.) is fast becoming an important factor of distinguishing between potential employees in the recruitment process. The cognitive intelligence (I.Q.) or qualifications that you hold are still extremely important but employers are now taking other factors into account such as E.Q. and can now tests these factors and so in many large organisations they test this similarly to how it has become the norm for aptitude testing.

E.Q. is said to be the process of monitoring emotions and feelings of one’s self or others to guide their thinking and action processes. Higher E.Q. has been said to show trends in more positive interactions with friends and family and reduced chances of participating in delinquent behaviour. It has been shown that people with better E.Q. are more successful and productive, both themselves and others around them and have lower levels of stress in their daily lives with better control of conflicts and relationships.

Negatives towards E.Q. will state that it is little more than a glorified personality test and is not a legitimate test of any relevance to the work place or prospective employees. I personally believe that it can be used as an extremely useful tool to distinguish between people at the interview stage.

The good news to all this is that E.Q. can be learned. This fact is proven by the way that it does increase with age alone suggesting it may be experienced based. Some people are born naturally more emotionally intelligent than others but to increase it people must be personally motivated and willing to receive feedback, regardless whether it be a positive or negative criticism.

A list of E.Q. in a brief document can be found at this site for further reading if you wish http://www.epsyconsultancy.com/resources/EQ-i%20scales.pdf