EQ : Way to job approach

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to deal effectively with other people and their feelings as well as your own. In job hunting, a high EQ can produce a successful interview and ultimately a job offer. Unlike your intelligence quotient (IQ), which is genetically predetermined, you can increase your EQ through awareness. And EQ may be as much a predictor of success (if not a better one) than your IQ, especially in job hunting, where personal interaction plays an important role.       According to an interview published in Selling Power magazine, noted EQ researcher Rob Scher suggests the following five elements of EQ are particularly applicable to interviewing, especially when the targeted position is within a sales organization:AssertivenessBeing assertive helps you move the job opportunity forward without offending or frustrating the interviewer. Think of assertiveness as being located halfway between passivity and aggressiveness.For example, suppose you are trying to close on a job offer, but the interviewer is delaying the final decision. You can respond in one of three ways:Passive: “Could you give me a call when you’ve made a decision?”Assertive: “Could you give me a specific time and date when you’ll make your final decision?”Aggressive: “If you don’t hire me right now, I’ll go work for your competitor.”The first response is almost guaranteed to fail, while the third response, even if immediately successful, creates resentment. The second approach sets up specific conditions for the job offer without forcing the pace.Self-AwarenessIdentify your own feelings, and use them to cope effectively with the job-hunting process. Follow these steps:Identify which emotions you’re feeling. Are you angry? Sad? Self-conscious? Confident?Predict how your feelings will affect your performance during the job-hunting process.Compensate for negative emotions that might hinder your effectiveness, and expand positive ones that might help you get the job offer.For example, if you’re furious that your first interview was a no-show, take some time to calm down before you go on another interview.EmpathyAdapting to the interviewer’s moods and emotions is as important as recognizing your own. Empathy begins with effective listening and observation. But simply knowing what the interviewer might be feeling is not enough to be empathetic. You must actually be able to feel what the interviewer is likely to be feeling.For example, suppose you discover that the interviewer has just received some bad news. You can respond by:Proceeding with the interview as if nothing had changed, demonstrating low EQ.Suggesting another time for the interview, showing more moderate EQ.Taking a moment to imagine the sense of confusion that the interviewer might be feeling and, depending on the situation, decide whether he would prefer to commiserate or, alternatively, be distracted. If you’re unsure, ask the interviewer what he would like to do. This reveals high EQ. Problem-SolvingTo show the interviewer how you will help satisfy his organization’s needs, you need to act as a problem solver. Follow these steps:Discover what these really are. Don’t try to present yourself as a solution to a problem you don’t fully understand.Help the interviewer visualize how those needs could and should be satisfied.Show how hiring you could move the interviewer’s organization closer to the way the interviewer would like them to be.HappinessIt’s important to maintain a sense of balance when things go awry so you leave your prospective employer with a good impression.Suppose, for instance, an important job interview goes poorly. You might want to beat yourself up and question your worthiness to be hired. Instead, realize that every interview is different, and the next will probably be better. If you can take a bad interview in stride, you will be more likely to feel and communicate enthusiasm and energy during your next interview.

The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the Coarch and Horses, more dead than alive as it seemed, and flung his portmanteau down. “A fire,” he cried, “in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!” He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a ready acquiescence to terms and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn.Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who was no “haggler,” and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie, her lymphatic aid, had been been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost éclat. Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard. His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost in thought. She noticed that the melted snow that still sprinkled his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. “Can I take your hat and coat, sir,” she said, “and give them a good dry in the kitchen?””No,” he said without turning.She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her question.He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. “I prefer to keep them on,” he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he wore big blue spectacles with side-lights, and had a bushy side-whisker over his coatcollar that completely hid his cheeks and face.”Very well, sir,” she said. “As you like. In a bit the room will be warmer.”He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called rather than said to him, “Your lunch is served, sir.””Thank you.” he said at the same time, and did not stir until she was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table with a certain eager quickness.As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. “That girl!” she said. “There! I clean forgot it. It’s her being so long!” And while she herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs, laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!) had only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried it into the parlour.She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to her steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. “I suppose I may have them to dry now,” she said in a voice that brooked no denial.”Leave the hat,” said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her.For a moment she stook gaping at him, too surprised to speak.He held a white cloth—it was a serviette he had brought with him—over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden, and that was the reason for his muffled voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall, It was the fact that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright, pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a moment she was rigid.He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his inscrutable blue glasses. “Leave the hat,” he said, speaking very distinctly through the white cloth.Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. “I didn’t know, sir,” she began, “that—” and she stopped embarrassed.”Thank you,” he said dryily, glancing from her to the door and then at her again.”I’ll have them nicely dried, sir, at once,” she said, and carried his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head and blue goggles again as she was going out the door; but his napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise and perplexity. “I never,” she whispered. “There!” She went quite softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what she was messing about with now, when she got there.The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier air to the table and his meal.”The poor soul’s had an accident or an operation or something,” said Mrs. Hall. “What a turn them bandages did give me, to be sure!”She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended the traveller’s coat upon this. “And they goggles! Why, he looked more like a divin’-helmet than a human man!” She hung his muffler on a corner of the horse. “And holding that handkercher over his mouth all the time. Talkin’ through it! . . . Perhaps his mouth was hurt too—maybe.” She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. “Bless my soul alive!” she said, going off at a tangent; “ain’t you done them taters yet, Millie?”When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger’s lunch, her idea that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident she supposed him to have suffered, was confirmed, for he was smoking a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for she saw he glanced at it as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner with his back to the window-blind and spoke now, having eaten and drunk and been comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto.”I have some luggage,” he said, “at Bramblehurst station,” and he asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head quite politely in acknowledgement of her explanation. “To-morrow!” he said. “There is no speedier delivery?” and seemed quite disappointed when she answered, “No.” Was she quite sure? No man with a trap who would go over?Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions and developed a conversation. “It’s a steep road by the down, sir,” she said in answer to the question about a trap; and then, snatching at an opening, said, “It was there a carriage was up-settled, a year ago and more, A gentleman killed, besides his coachman. Accidents, sir, happens in a moment, don’t they?”But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. “They do,” he said through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable glasses.”But they take long enough to get well, sir, Don’t they? . . . There was my sister’s son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, Tumbled on it in the ‘ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up, sir. you’d hardly believe it. It’s regular given me a dread of a scythe, sir.””I can quite understand that,” said the visitor.”He was afraid, one time, that he’d have to have an op’ration—he was that bad, sir.”The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to bite and kill in his mouth. “Was he?” he said.”He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for him, as I had—my sister being took up with her little ones so much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that if I may make so bold as to say it, sir—””Will you get me some matches?” said the visitor, quite abruptly. “My pipe is out.”Mrs. Hall was pulled up suddenly. It was certainly rude of him, after telling him all she had done. She gasped at him for a moment, and remembered the two sovereigns. She went for the matches.”Thanks,” he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the topic of operations and bandages. She did not “make so bold as to say,” however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her, and Millie had a hot time of it that afternoon.The visitor remained in the parlour until four o’clock, without giving the ghost of an excuse for an intrusion. For the most part he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the growing darkness smoking in the firelight, perhaps dozing.Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals, and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room. He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as he sat down again.Story by—H. G. Wells

The Necklace

The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich and distinguished man; so she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction.She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth. Natural ingenuity, instinct for what is elegant, a supple mind are their sole hierarchy, and often make of women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies. Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and bewildering dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long reception halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities and of the little coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o’clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire. When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth in use three days, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with a delighted air, “Ah, the good soup! I don’t know anything better than that,” she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry that peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvellous plates and of the whispered gallantries to which you listen with a sphinxlike smile while you are eating the pink meat of a trout or the wings of a quail.She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. She felt made for that. She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go to see any more because she felt so sad when she came home.But one evening her husband reached home with a triumphant air and holding a large envelope in his hand.”There,” said he, “there is something for you.”She tore the paper quickly and drew out a printed card which bore these words:The Minister of Public Instruction and Madame Georges Ramponneau request the honor of M. and Madame Loisel’s company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th. Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she threw the invitation on the table crossly, muttering:”What do you wish me to do with that?””Why, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity. I had great trouble to get it. Every one wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be there.”She looked at him with an irritated glance and said impatiently:”And what do you wish me to put on my back?”He had not thought of that. He stammered:”Why, the gown you go to the theatre in. It looks very well to me.”He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was weeping. Two great tears ran slowly from the corners of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth.”What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” he answered.By a violent effort she conquered her grief and replied in a calm voice, while she wiped her wet cheeks:”Nothing. Only I have no gown, and, therefore, I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I am.”He was in despair. He resumed:”Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable gown, which you could use on other occasions–something very simple?”She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum she could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the economical clerk.Finally she replied hesitating:”I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”He grew a little pale, because he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who went to shoot larks there of a Sunday.But he said:”Very well. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty gown.”The day of the ball drew near and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her frock was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening: The Necklace, Napoleon’s collection”What is the matter? Come, you have seemed very queer these last three days.”And she answered:”It annoys me not to have a single piece of jewelry, not a single ornament, nothing to put on. I shall look poverty-stricken. I would almost rather not go at all.””You might wear natural flowers,” said her husband. “They’re very stylish at this time of year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses.”She was not convinced.”No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.””How stupid you are!” her husband cried. “Go look up your friend, Madame Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You’re intimate enough with her to do that.”She uttered a cry of joy:”True! I never thought of it.”The next day she went to her friend and told her of her distress.Madame Forestier went to a wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel box, brought it back, opened it and said to Madame Loisel:”Choose, my dear.”She saw first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian gold cross set with precious stones, of admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the mirror, hesitated and could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept asking:”Haven’t you any more?””Why, yes. Look further; I don’t know what you like.”Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her heart throbbed with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it round her throat, outside her high-necked waist, and was lost in ecstasy at her reflection in the mirror.Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anxious doubt:”Will you lend me this, only this?””Why, yes, certainly.”She threw her arms round her friend’s neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, sought to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wished to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself.