hy-phen Workforce Management Solutions, an industry-leading recruitment solutions provider, has been using Emotional Intelligence to predict the potential of graduates for one of its leading clients.

Emotional Intelligence is about how individuals manage both themselves and others. It is also about understanding and gaining an accurate insight into an individual's Emotional Intelligence and what motivates them to succeed. This is the key to human capital management.

Until recently, the main approaches to assessing and developing human behaviour have been personality questionnaires. However, by using the Emotional Intelligence model, it is possible to assess a candidate's ability to manage their personality and behaviour and hence their potential for success in different situations. In today's business environment what matters is not just a person's training or their expertise but their people skills and their ability to manage themselves and others. Understanding a candidate's Emotional Intelligence enables managers/recruiters to assess quickly the key behavioural competencies that predict success in the job role they are recruiting for.

Working with Brentfield Consultancy (Business Psychologists), hy-phen has been using the EBW™ System to assess IT, business and financial graduates' Emotional Intelligence for their clients.

Simon Rickman, Head of Operations at hy-phen, explains ‘ For our clients we need to know that graduates not only have the right technical skills but, as important, their behavioural competencies and the potential to make a difference with customers. We use Peopleclick for managing the online recruitment process and we use the EBW system to assess the candidates' Emotional Intelligence. This helps us assess those candidates who have the potential our clients are looking for ''

The EBW online system provides an eight-page report on each person. It highlights their potential for success and provides colour coded interpretation of their Emotional Intelligence, i.e. red, amber or green. The system generates different questions depending on the candidate's Emotional Intelligence profile. This ensures that the interviewer always asks the right questions to check the candidate's suitability for the role.

Brentfield's Managing Director says, “The EBW expert system increases performance and saves costs not only because it concentrates on the ‘real' human factors that determine success but also on focused questioning which enables smarter use of time for busy managers/recruiters”.

For Steria, a European provider of IT solutions, hy-phen needed to interview 200 candidates prior to attending their graduate assessment centre. By using Peopleclick and the EBW system together, hy-phen provided a consistent and standardised approach to recruitment from job analysis through to interviewing before attending an assessment centre. The 45 min interview was focused on a candidate's Emotional Intelligence and his/her suitability for a range of IT/business/financial roles at Steria. The competencies assessed were then tested again through a series of complementary competency based exercises, also developed with Brentfield's expertise. This ensured that Steria got the right candidates for the right job.

To discuss EBW or the value of Emotional Intelligence to organisations call our office number: +44 (0) 1322 286 826 or email us at info@ebwonline.com