Most businesses have hired someone who looked good on paper and interviewed well. They had the experience, qualifications and answered the technical questions to a high standard.
Then the person started, and something did not feel right. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do the job, they could, but the problem was how they did the job. They became defensive when given feedback, they misread people, reacted poorly under pressure and created tension with colleagues or clients.
This is where many hiring decisions become painful.
The business did not hire someone who lacked ability, instead they hired someone who lacked the emotional intelligence to manage the interpersonal relationships of the role.
That is why emotional intelligence matters in recruitment.
Emotional intelligence is not about being nice, agreeable or popular, although that is part of it. It is not about hiring the person who smiles and laughs the most in the interview or tells the best story about teamwork. In simple terms, emotional intelligence is about how well a person understands emotion, manages emotion and uses that information to respond effectively to people and situations.
Most roles involve other people; customers, clients, colleagues, managers, suppliers and team members, all of whom potentially create emotional demands. Even roles that look technical on the surface usually require some degree of social judgement, patience, self-control, communication and the ability to deal with frustration without making the work harder for everyone else.
A technically capable person with poor emotional intelligence can become expensive very quickly. They may know the work, but if they cannot regulate their reactions, manage conflict or understand how they affect others, their technical skill may not be enough to offset the disruption they create.
This is one of the uncomfortable lessons of recruitment; the person who can do the task is not always the person who can succeed in the role.
Carolyn MacCann from the University of Sydney has contributed to important research on emotional intelligence, including work showing that emotional intelligence is related to meaningful performance outcomes. Emotional intelligence should not be treated as a magic ingredient that explains everything. Intelligence, conscientiousness, experience and personality still matter, but emotional intelligence can add another important piece of evidence, especially in roles where people must manage pressure, respond to others and maintain effective working relationships.
A good recruitment process does not ask whether emotional intelligence matters more than everything else. That is the wrong question. The better question is whether the role requires a person to understand themselves, read others, handle conflict, regulate stress and respond maturely when things do not go their way. For most roles, the answer is yes.
A manager needs emotional intelligence when giving feedback, resolving tension and keeping standards high without creating unnecessary damage. A client facing employee needs it when dealing with frustration, confusion or a complaint. A team member needs it when priorities change, pressure rises or someone disagrees with them.
Poor hiring decisions often happen because the selection process focuses too much on what the person has done and not enough on how the person is likely to behave. A CV does not tell you how someone manages criticism. An interview may not show how they respond when they feel exposed, disappointed or under pressure. References may not reveal the patterns that quietly made them difficult to manage.
Psychometric testing can help fill that gap.
Used properly, emotional intelligence assessment can provide evidence about how a candidate understands and manages emotional information. It can help generate useful questions for a structured interview. It can help the employer explore whether the person has the emotional maturity required for the role, the team and the pressure that comes with the work.
But it should not be used alone.
The value comes from combining evidence. Emotional intelligence should be considered alongside cognitive ability, personality, work history, structured interview responses, reference checks and the actual demands of the role. When these sources point in the same direction, the hiring decision becomes stronger.
Summary
Emotional intelligence matters in recruitment because many roles require more than technical skill. Candidates must often manage pressure, respond to feedback, work with others, handle conflict and maintain judgement when things become difficult. Research supports the view that emotional intelligence can be linked to important performance outcomes, although it should not be treated as a standalone construct. Used properly, emotional intelligence assessment can add valuable evidence to a structured recruitment process.
Call to action
If your business wants to reduce the risk of hiring someone who can do the work but creates problems in the role, Fermion can help. Psychometric testing can add evidence about emotional intelligence, personality, cognitive ability and fit, giving you a stronger basis for better hiring decisions.
The focus of Fermion is
"Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and
“Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them”. If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please
contact us at Fermion.
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
Eleanor Roosevelt.
NB: I use ChatGPT as a writing and editing tool, but the ideas, judgement and final views in this article are my own.
