7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Risky and hostile interview questions that may produce serious problems, March 23, 2010
This review is from: The EQ Interview: Finding Employees with High Emotional Intelligence (Paperback)
The EQ Interview: Finding Employees with High Emotional Intelligence is a textbook. It is not really a hiring guide. If you are interested in a fairly straighforward explanation of EQ, this is a pretty good resource. Unfortunately it is not a good interview guide. The questions are sometimes hostile and no objective method for interpreting the responses is provided.
The book is made up of eleven chapters each of which explains a different aspect of EQ. Interview questions finally appear in Appendix 2. The book gets two stars because of the depth of the information in the these chapters.
But the interview information is a big problem. Not only does the reader have no objective mechanism for interpreting responses to interview questions, there is no evidence tieing responses to these specific questions to good or poor job performance. It might seem obvious to some interviewers what the right answer is to "Tell me about the time you realized that something was best left unsaid," but not to everyone.
Though many of the interview questions are fine, a large number have a "when did you last stop beating your wife," undercurrent. For example, how would you like to be the candidate who is asked about the last time she had been "annoying someone at work." Many are deeply personal. The answers are not necessarily easy for the average person to interpret because candidates will have a tough time answering many of them honestly--even if they are mature, sensitive etc. Some questions will simply test the candidate's ability to hold his or her temper at an interview. In fact if you ask a candidate some of the questions in this book, your own emotional intelligence should probably be questioned.
Ad hoc interpretations of these questions could easily leave one open to charges of gender, age and cultural bias. An interviewer or hiring manager with a low EQ could easily misinterpret or misuse this information. Unless you can be absolutely certain that the responses to a given question predict job performance,I would use it purely as a reference on the subject of EQ.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Resource for Hiring, November 25, 2008
This review is from: The EQ Interview: Finding Employees with High Emotional Intelligence (Paperback)
This book is an outstanding resource for anyone who has to hire others. I particularly liked the sections on self-awareness and self-management. The questions give the interviewer very specific questions to ask. Also, at the end of each section, the author summarizes what to look for in the answers. The book is well organized too. The section in the back allows for easy reference of the questions pertaining to the various areas of emotional intelligence. I would definitely recommend it.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Interviewing Book, November 25, 2008
This review is from: The EQ Interview: Finding Employees with High Emotional Intelligence (Paperback)
Outstanding resource for hiring people. Since the research shows that emotional intelligence is important to job success, screening for EQ is a must for selecting the right candidate for the job. The author clearly explains each Eq competency using workplace examples, then she gives specific questions to ask and offers help in interpreting the answers. I also like the fact that she uses behavior based interviewing, but takes it a step further. I found the section on how to spot an EQ fraud helpful too. I would highly recommend this book.
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