Emotional intelligence in the work of a recruiter. A treasure or an unbearable burden?

You will likely not find a recruiter vacancy in the requirements of which you would not see such an essential criterion as emotional intelligence. Moreover, this skill ranks among the top 5 crucial criteria not only in the workplace but also in personal life.

What is emotional intelligence? The theory of emotional intelligence received serious scientific development in the 90s of the 20th century in the works of American scientists: David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey. They divided emotional intelligence into 4 components:

-the ability to identify one’s own and other people’s emotions, to find differences between them;

-the ability to use the full potential of emotions to solve specific tasks;

-the ability to be aware of each emotion and understand how it arises;

-the ability to control one’s emotions and manage them.

That is, to generalize, emotional intelligence (EI) is considered to be the ability to work with emotions and show empathy. This is the power to recognize emotions, to recognize negative and positive feelings, and to manage one’s own and other people’s emotions.

Since the work of a recruiter is largely related to communication, self-organization, and candidate orientation, and more, we can conclude that it is a really important skill in everyday work. It is necessary to correctly assess the potential of the candidate, whether the team will be comfortable with this person, and whether it will not be stressful to work in general. For example, the recruiter’s determination of the candidate’s metaprogram, i.e. the formed way of thinking of a person, which they may not even be aware of, will help in this. For example, does the candidate care about the opinion of others, or does the person emphasize their feelings and rely only on themselves? Does a person get more pleasure from the process or from the final result? Is a candidate a loner or a team player? We can evaluate all this by behavior, by emotions during communication or an interview, as well as by specific answers to questions.

This is, of course, a positive side of emotional intelligence in the work of a recruiter. Quickly, effectively and as fruitfully as possible to assess the candidate’s potential and be able to coordinate with managers for further processes.

However, such an important and valuable skill can play a cruel joke on you. Day after day, you communicate with a large number of people. They are all different. And everywhere you read and project emotions onto yourself. If your empathy is developed at a high level, you can very quickly face burnout, self-criticism, obsessive thoughts, and irritation. Your treasure in the form of emotional intelligence can turn into a real burden. To prevent this from happening, it is worth following a few lifehacks:

• Find a work-life balance. If you immerse yourself in work and completely forget about rest and your own life, it is quite likely that you will cease to be useful and productive in both niches.
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• Restore the resource. Meet with friends for coffee, watch a comedy alone under a blanket, and take a walk in the park to your favorite music. Never forget about yourself.
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• Engage in personal psychotherapy. You can keep a diary of emotions. Understand under what circumstances you feel worse than usual. This way, you will be able to read your body’s signals when you need to take a break.

It should always be remembered that skills need to be learned and developed. Emotional intelligence is not an exception to the rule. Finding the right strategy and forwarding it in the right direction is what really matters. In this way, you will be able to control your emotions and distinguish the emotions of the people around you.