Identifying Compassion During an Interview

The insurance industry is all about helping people in need, so compassion is an important quality to have. It helps people establish a connection with the people they are serving, to understand what their clients are going through and deliver better service.

So, when interviewing, make sure you are hiring people who have compassion. How can you identify those people? Here are a few behavioral questions that may help.

Describe a time when you had to deliver difficult news. How did you do it?

This is a question that attempts to gauge the empathy a person has for others. Empathy is the ability to understand how another person is feeling. So, delivering bad news requires a degree of empathy. A person with empathy or compassion will try to communicate the information in a way that does not unduly upset the receiver.

For example, someone without empathy might simply walk up to the person, blurt out the bad news in a matter-of-fact way and leave. But someone with empathy will first try to prepare the person a little by saying something like, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

After delivering the news, an empathetic person will do what they can to comfort the person receiving it.

What do you do when someone comes to you with a problem?

An empathetic person will listen to the other person with interest, ask questions to learn as much as they can about the problem, and then take time to consider the problem before giving some advice.

If the candidate has difficulty giving an example, it may be a red flag because people do not feel comfortable coming to them with problems.

Talk about a time when you got angry at work. How did you deal with it?

This is a good question to determine how a person might handle conflict. It is important to find out why the person got angry, what they did about it and how things turned out. If the person blames others for causing problems or conflict, this may be another red flag. A person with empathy will recognize when they made a mistake, take responsibility for it and work to solve the problem.

Looking to Recruit Insurance Professionals?

If your company is looking for qualified, reliable insurance professionals, contact Insurance Relief today. We are one of the best in the business, winning a Best of Staffing award for our accomplishments. At Insurance Relief, we thoroughly evaluate each person, so you get only the best. Give Insurance Relief a call today.