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Showing posts with the label Emotional Intelligence

Why Candidates should Not Fear taking Psychometric Assessments

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  Psychometric assessments are widely used in the recruitment process and as an effective tool for screening in candidates. Psychometric assessment tools are scientific tests designed to assess an individual’s personality traits and cognitive abilities. These may include predictive index (PI), cognitive ability tests, behavioral assessment tests, emotional intelligence tests, etc.  Their extensive use in the recruitment process is because these assessment tests help evaluate a candidate’s performance, skills, knowledge, attitudes, competencies, personality attributes, and job as well as academic potential. Psychometric assessment tests are standardized tests useful for HR managers and recruiters in the hiring process because they are accurate in predicting a candidate’s behavioral tendencies and his or her competency for a particular job role. The insight about the candidate’s personality and skills enables recruiters make better job-related decisions and provide training for employee

Why is EQ Important for Teamwork

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  Daniel Goleman (1998), author of the bestseller, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More Than IQ, defined emotional intelligence, commonly called EQ (Emotional Quotient), as “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” According to Salovey and Mayer (1990), “emotional intelligence is a set of skills that are thought to contribute to the appraisal of emotions in oneself and others. It can also help contribute to the effective regulation of emotions as well as feelings”.  How Components of EQ Aid Teamwork? Teamwork is a collaborative and collective effort of a particular group towards achieving a common goal or completing some task in an effective manner. It has some important aspects such as cooperation, coordination, communication and interdependence. All these aspects are influenced by an underlying dimension or factor – emotional intelligence of the team me

Why cognitive ability test is increasingly becoming important for pre-employment screening?

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  Pre-employment screening is an important process while hiring a suitable candidate for a particular job role. In this process the recruiters or the organization verifies the information which the candidates have supplied through their applications and resumes or CVs. In pre-employment screening, recruiters use different tests, tools, methods, activities or tasks to verify the information and learn more about the candidates and their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and how suitable they are for the position or job the organization has to offer them. Pre-employment screening till now primarily consisted of administering some IQ or knowledge tests, resume screening, and requiring candidates to do some job-related tasks to assess their skills. However, the trends are now changing. Today, in the modern world of technological advancement marked by changing working environments, cognitive ability tests which help assess a candidate’s ability to adjust to change and other important com

Why EQ is Importance for Leaders

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  Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer (1990), were the ones who coined the term emotional intelligence and defined it as "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.” In 1998, Daniel Goleman, in his bestseller defined emotional intelligence as “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. Emotional intelligence describes abilities distinct from, but complementary to, academic intelligence or the purely cognitive capacities measured by IQ.”  In his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More Than IQ, he defined emotional intelligence as “abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the abi

Cognitive Ability versus IQ (Intelligence Quotient)

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What is Cognitive Ability? The word Cognition is defined as the mental processes or mental activities which are associated with thought, language, reasoning, decision-making, and other mental processes. General cognitive ability is the “ability that consistently differentiates individuals on mental abilities regardless of the cognitive task or test” (Jensen, 1998). General cognitive ability is often referred to as general intelligence, general mental ability or aptitude. This general intelligence is also known as g factor and is a construct made up of different cognitive abilities. It is what is common or underlies all mental abilities or skills such as those related to spatial, verbal, numerical and mechanical abilities. Certain components of general intelligence include fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial reasoning, and working memory. Similarly, cognitive ability has also been defined as “general mental capability involving reasoning, problem solving,

Importance of Psychometric Assessments for Hiring

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  Importance of Psychometric Assessments for Hiring The usual process of hiring an employee to work at a company is quite familiar. This old convention begins with the publishing of a job description to attract potential candidates, after which the pool of applicants is rigorously screened to single out qualifications and traits that would be helpful for the job. There may be a selection committee that determines the proficiency level and past experience of a candidate, after which the lucky worker is scouted and hired. But can one gauge the finer aspects of a candidate’s workstyle and ethic solely based off of an interview and screening process? The answer to that dilemma is a psychometric test. What is a psychometric test? Psychometrics is the field of social sciences concerned with the study of psychological measurement. It can be used to measure one’s knowledge, abilities, personality traits and other attributes. A psychometric test hence provides clarity about one’s cognitive abil

Emotional Intelligence: The Importance of a High EQ

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“One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.” Friedrich Nietzsche  What is emotional intelligence and how is it formed? Defined as the ability to understand, use and reason with one’s own emotions, emotional intelligence (also known as EQ) is a measure of one’s ability to defuse interpersonal conflicts, empathise with others’ struggles, communicate aptly and relieve stress. Each person’s EQ is dependent on a variety of factors, but science seems to have put the “nature vs nurture” argument to rest in terms of what defines one’s EQ. That means that emotional intelligence is not only dependent on biological or genetic factors, but also on one’s life experiences including their upbringing. Where is emotional intelligence applicable? i. School: Students with better emotional intelligence are more mature, hence they can conduct themselves better and communicate more effectively in the classroom. They will also be able to relate t

Role of Emotional Intelligence in Worklife Success

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Emotional Intelligence or Emotional Quotient or EQ, as it is widely known as, is nothing but an awareness about recurring patterns of emotions and feelings that an individual has.  Now we all know what impact emotions can have on our decision making or on our way of working. We need not go far on this, just think if you have an argument at home in the morning and you come to office, then how do you deal with your colleagues and reportees. Do they get to see the same sweet professional demeanour as you would normally have? Well that is possible only if we were robots - totally transactional in our input - output. But for all humans, Emotions eat Rationality for breakfast!  There are 2 ways in which an individual can lead a worklife. First is in an auto mode - flowing with the emotions and reacting to the feeling that we generate inside us. Second is to be aware of these emotions and what triggers them. Being aware of it allows an individual to come out of auto mode and be able to respon