Hiring for More Than Skill
Establish a throughline with emotionally intelligent questions
Most technical hiring processes focus on ability. But software engineers rarely fail because they can't code; they fail because they don’t ask, don’t adapt, and don’t connect. It’s why Emotional Intelligence (EQ) matters so much to me when hiring engineers. It helps you see beyond the present moment, to how they’ve developed, adapted, and where they may be going—powerful hiring signals.
It’s important to be clear: EQ isn’t about being nice. And I’m not trying to dig into a candidate’s personal story. I’m trying to understand how they handle ambiguity, conflict, feedback, and failure. Research links traits like self-awareness, regulation, and empathy to real-world performance and long-term success. And when we hire, isn’t that what we actually care about? I can teach software design. I can’t teach emotional regulation or self-awareness. Not at work anyway. Those traits aren’t abstract. They show up in how someone talks about past projects, setbacks, or team dynamics. But you won’t find them on a résumé. You have to ask. You have to listen. You have to engage.
This is where the Big Five Personality Traits shine. It’s my preferred model because its results hold across cultures and contexts. Used well, the five traits (OCEAN) shape both your questions and your interpretation of the answers. You might ask about tradeoffs they’ve made (Openness), how they manage deadlines (Conscientiousness), how they prefer to collaborate (Extraversion), how they handle disagreement (Agreeableness), and what stress does to them (Neuroticism). But you can’t just ask. You have to care. You have to dig in. You have to grab ahold of the thread of their story, find the shape of their arc, not just look for facts.
Often, interviews cover surface-level questions. They miss the story. I don’t want that. I want to understand where someone’s come from, where they’re going—as best I can given the time constraints. Designing questions that reveal aspects of OCEAN helps me do this. To guide that, I like to ask myself, “what will help uncover this person’s arc?” I don’t want to get to know them as they are right this second, I want their story.
These are example notes I use to find someone’s thread; they help me see beyond the résumé and start to trace their throughline:
Q: When you get stuck on a problem, what’s your approach for getting unstuck?
Traits: O/C/E [these map directly to OCEAN, aspects I’m looking to uncover]
Listen for:
Grounding in real behaviour
A non-idealized self-concept
Q: What skill(s) feel just out of reach for you right now?
Traits: O/C/E
Listen for:
How they frame growth. Do they emphasize team benefit (“I want to help others by learning X”) or personal mastery (“I want to be better at Y”)? Either are valid, but consider the different motivations this reveals
How is the answer rooted? Does it reflect self-awareness, or is it wrapped in vague ambition?
Potential follow-up: Tell me about a skill you had to stretch for. Why was it important? How’d you develop it?
Q: How do you think people perceive you when you're hashing out ideas with them?
Traits: A/E/N
Listen for:
Some meta-cognition/social calibration
Whether they’re aware of how they come across? Do they adapt their style, or are they fixed in how they engage?
Signs of either self-awareness or blind spots