Is high emotional intelligence a recruiter’s secret to success?
- Recruitment
How emotionally intelligent do think you are? And do you think it has an impact on how well you do your job as a recruitment or HR professional in the mining industry?
How emotionally intelligent do think you are? And do you think it has an impact on how well you do your job as a recruitment or HR professional in the mining industry?
The first question only you can answer (and, in fact, you can find out: you can take a test here).
But instinctively, thanks to our jobs, the answer to the second question is probably, “yes”. After all, as far back as 2011 an oft-quoted study of more than 2600 hiring managers found 71% valued emotional intelligence (EI) over IQ.
It also found:
- 59% would not hire someone with a high IQ but low EI
- 75% would be more likely to promote a candidate with a high EI.
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is a term coined in 1990 by US-based psychology professors John D. Mayer of UNH and Peter Salovey of Yale:
“From a scientific (rather than a popular) standpoint, emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive your own and others’ emotions; to understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others’ emotions,” Mayer said. “It doesn’t necessarily include the qualities (like optimism, initiative, and self-confidence) that some popular definitions ascribe to it.”
It quickly became clear EI was crucial in business leadership, with the most successful business leaders more likely to have a high EI (as outlined in this famous Harvard Business Review article).
The elements of emotional intelligence
There are considered to be five components of EI:
- Self-awareness: Your ability to understand your strengths and weaknesses and recognise their effects on both your performance and that of your team
- Self-regulation: Your ability to manage your emotions, especially when stressed, and stay positive. Can you avoid knee-jerk reactions and provide considered responses instead?
- Motivation: A passion for your work that goes beyond money or status
- Social awareness (or empathy): Do you know how to read a room? This is your ability to read the emotions and dynamics in any situation, to understand them, and act appropriately
- Relationship management: This is your ability to influence and mentor others, resolve conflicts, keep your team happy and maintain a good culture, even if you need to have tough conversations sometimes.
Here’s why emotional intelligence matters in recruitment
Listed like that, it’s obvious why the best leaders have a high EI. But is that also true of the best recruiters? In an article for Forbes, recruitment specialist Tatiana Melnichuk argued that it was.
“We work with people, and working with people means feeling emotions that can be completely different and not always positive,” she said. “Sometimes we have to work with a difficult client, and other times candidates blame the recruiter for their unsuccessful interviews.
“For recruiters, it is important not to allow your emotions to affect your work. This does not mean that it is necessary to suppress your reactions: On the contrary, controlling emotions is about awareness and elaboration in the appropriate setting.”
Why is this important?
“So that “unlived” emotions do not accumulate and do not affect working moments (by the way, this can affect colleagues in addition to candidate interactions) and the psychological comfort of the recruiter,” Melnichuk says.
Protecting the self in the recruitment process
It’s the last part of that sentence that Melnichuk focuses on next: the wellness of the recruiter. She argues that recruiters are constantly conducting complex negotiations and searching for compromise, which requires a high level of both ethics and empathy. These are high EI skills.
She had two pieces of advice for recruiters.
- Focus on the present: Things go wrong. Worrying and complaining about what has already happened won’t change the outcome. Focus your energies on finding a solution
- Set personal boundaries: Sometimes saying no is the right thing to do. This requires learning about yourself (self-awareness) and ultimately makes you more effective.
Improving your emotional intelligence
So, is having high EI the secret to a recruiter’s success? No definitive study has been done. But, if you can understand yourself, your clients, the candidates you’re working with, your colleagues and the dynamics between them all, it certainly doesn’t hurt. The great news is, you can always improve your EI. Check out this article from Harvard Professional Development for tips.
MPI has almost 30 years’ specialist experience helping mining companies find the best candidates across every job category. Find out more here or get in touch today.
