Part 4 (1/2)

GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE.

Emotional Intelligence and Your Career Portfolio Anita Martel, RGR

Having an up-to-date emotional intelligence a.s.sessment has become one of your greatest a.s.sets in your job search strategy. Why? Because by doing so you've reduced the risk the hiring manager has in hiring YOU YOU.

An emotional intelligence a.s.sessment gives you concrete and valid evidence that complements your resume and provides tangible proof to a potential employer. Hiring managers are risk averse, and by making their job virtually risk free you have just given yourself a leg up on the compet.i.tion. The added plus to having your emotional intelligence a.s.sessed is that you can speak with complete confidence during an interview. You gain valuable insight that you can use to your benefit. By knowing your strong points, you can further build on them and use them to position yourself advantageously. In addition, by knowing your weaker points, you can specifically concentrate on improving them. It is strongly recommended that you retake the test at 2- to 3-year intervals to reevaluate your progress over time.

In the workplace, an ever-increasing number of employers are choosing to use emotional intelligence a.s.sessments to ensure a greater fit of potential and current employees within their company culture. It is becoming more and more obvious to today's companies that their workforce can no longer be managed in the traditional style. That is, today's employee is no longer just a part of the puzzle that completes the big picture but has become the process with which to do it. Organizations are now filled with highly educated knowledge workers that as a team have become this process. This is in essence what will give one company a distinct compet.i.tive advantage over another, and today's companies are specifically looking for that edge.

On the personal side of things, none of us live in a vacuum, and we can clearly see how our personal life always ends up trickling into our professional life at one time or another. We develop relations.h.i.+ps with everyone around us. How well we manage those relations.h.i.+ps can have a significant impact on both our professional as well as our personal lives. Having vibrant, healthy relations.h.i.+ps has become the core compet.i.tive advantage in today's workplace.

So what exactly is emotional intelligence? ”Emotional intelligence is the unique repertoire of emotional skills that a person uses to navigate the everyday challenges of life” (Multi-Health Systems, 2008). It is the awareness of one's emotions and the ability to use those emotions to strengthen one's performance. Simply put, emotional intelligence is often referred to as common sense or street smarts.

Research has demonstrated that an individual's emotional intelligence is often a more accurate predictor of success than that person's IQ. No matter how intellectually intelligent someone is, their success is still governed by how well they can communicate their ideas and interact with their peers. As opposed to IQ, which is said to be set early on in life, your emotional intelligence can be substantially strengthened and developed with appropriate training and thus can be improved considerably. Since emotional intelligence is elastic, those who lack it can gain it, and those who have it can augment and develop it further.

Many emotional intelligence tests exist on the market and all claim to be the best. I have researched a great number of them and keep coming back to one in particular. The BarOn EQ-I a.s.sessment is by far the most comprehensive on the market. It a.s.sesses interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, stress management, adaptability, and general mood with many other areas within these categories. Several different reports can be generated including a leaders.h.i.+p one, and its versatility allows individuals to track and work on their emotional intelligence. A company wanting to have an accurate predictor of best performers or a comparison/fit for potential employees can also use it. It is used worldwide, can be produced in several different languages, and has been scientifically validated. It can be taken online and completed in about 40 minutes. You receive a clear and easy-to-read written interpretation of your results, recommendations on what to do to increase your emotional intelligence, and a debriefing session with a certified administrator.

Remember, you are creating your career portfolio and whatever you can add to it that will put you a step ahead of the compet.i.tion is essential. All good career portfolios include a summary resume, a thorough detailed resume, a number of references, and an up-to-date emotional intelligence a.s.sessment.

Anita Martel is a partner of Perry-Martel International and a Certified BarOn EQ-I administrator. She is devoted to helping leaders, individuals, and teams increase their effectiveness and attain their full potential. For more information or to take the test, e-mail

Part I

Your Guerrilla Mind

Chapter 2.

Personal Branding Guerrilla Style

Shape Up Your Brand with Att.i.tude

If Christopher Columbus had turned back, no one would have blamed him. Of course, no one would have remembered him either.

-UNKNOWN AUTHOR

Embrace this fact: it's rarely the best qualified person who wins the most coveted position. Instead, it is often the person who ”packages” themself best to meet the needs of employers. This all comes down to how you look on paper initially and the att.i.tude you bring to your job search. You have 100 percent control over both. We'll discuss branding guerrilla style first, then your att.i.tude.

”YOU INC.”-YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

More than ever in our history, huge value is being leveraged from smart ideas and the winning technology and business models they create. In the years to come, as companies strive to hire fewer but better people, employers will try harder than they ever have to attract and retain smart, boldly entrepreneurial overachievers. In the new world of work, value is not salary-not for the employer, not for you. With millions of dollars at stake, an employer's search for an employee will be value-focused, not salary-driven.

As a job hunter, you need to comprehend that the production of value is the most important criterion for an employer when hiring. Articulating your value is your key to successful job hunting; it separates you from all the other job hunters. Understand, value is not salary; worth does not flow from a job t.i.tle. Knowing what's important to a company means looking beyond job descriptions and compensation tables, especially today when sudden changes and uncertainty are the norm.