Emotional Intelligence Can Be the Key to Interview Success

Several experts have contributed vital insights and articles on interview techniques, do’s and don’ts
in an interview, effective strategies for nailing the interviews and winning qualities of an
interviewee. The focus primarily revolves around domain knowledge and expertise, non-verbal
communication and body language, communication skills and the dress code or presentation.

As we all know, an interview is an engaging process of an interaction which takes place between the
interviewee and the interviewer for understanding mutual expectations and selecting the right
candidate for a given position. Subtle aspects like emotions, relationship, commitment and the
overall approach in the entire process acquire an increasing importance other than the smartness of
the candidate. It’s not always that smartest of all individuals with very high IQ crack the interviews
successfully, but rather the candidates who approach their goals enjoy the best of people skills. In
other words, it’s the person with high EI (Emotional Intelligence) who can make a real difference by
winning confidence and trust.

Let’s first discuss what is Emotional Intelligence (EI)? It is the ability to monitor and understand your
own as well as other people’s emotions and feelings and and to use this information to guide one’s
thinking and actions. The ability to use your Emotional Intelligence is often referred to as Emotional
Quotient (EQ). EI essentially has four components: Self-Awareness, Managing our emotions,
Empathy and Managing Relationships. Studies have shown that people with a well-developed EQ
enjoy a competitive edge in the job world as they are more sensitive, can empathize, understand
and manage emotions of self and others more effectively at work even under stressful
circumstances. Hence, the interviewers pay a lot of importance to the EQ level of a person instead of
IQ during an interview.

EI can be the key to an interview success as it is based on identifying commonalities, mutual respect
and being sensitive to differences, bestowing confidence and empathizing with the other person by
practicing active listening, encouraging participation and general involvement. Hence if applied in an
interview situation may play a determining role in assuring your success. The best way to apply EI in
an interview situation is to identify the commonalities which you have as well as your interviewer
possess. There are various techniques by way of which one can discover commonalities with the
interviewer:

 Research sufficiently: Perform a thorough research about the senior executives and the
panelists who might be present in the interview. Learn about their common areas of interest
and what they are passionate about.
 Practice listening skills and pay attention during the interview process: You may get many
opportunities to identify the common areas of interests by practicing listening skills during
the interview process. Listening helps in establishing a rapport, seeking attention of the
interviewer through your mannerisms and provides opportunities to clarify and ask further
questions for identifying a common ground.
 Connect facts with the interests during the interaction: How you respond to the questions
of your interviewer matters a lot. One of the most crucial one’s is Tell us something about
yourself? The response should be strategically planned as it may be set the direction or
course of the entire interaction. If you integrate facts with the interests about yourself, then
you create opportunities to connect. Describe the entire story in an impactful manner which
may give an impression that you are an achiever professionally and equally have similar
interests like that of the interviewer.
Lastly let the interview happen naturally, but keep an eye for commonalities for strengthening
relationship.