By James Woodfall, founder of Raise Your EI
In financial services, the wrong hire can cost far more than a recruiter’s fee. A bad financial advisor can damage client trust, harm your brand’s reputation, and drain time and resources in retraining or replacement. Many hiring managers think they’re good judges of character, until a well-prepared candidate walks in with a carefully crafted story that’s not entirely true.
That’s where emotional intelligence (EI) becomes crucial. In the hiring process, EI is a risk management tool, helping you read beyond the CV and detect when what you’re being told doesn’t align with reality.
Why Emotions Reveal the Truth
Law enforcement agencies have long studied verbal and non-verbal cues in investigative interviews. Human emotions often reveal our true intentions before we’ve had a chance to “manage” them, sometimes in the blink of an eye. These micro-expressions and subtle behaviour changes are often triggered pre-consciously, outside of the candidate’s control.
When someone tells the truth, their brain has only one task: to recall and share what happened. When someone lies, they must create a believable narrative and maintain it under scrutiny. This extra effort increases cognitive load, which is the mental strain of juggling details, suppressing truth, and managing impressions. Under pressure, this load often causes “leakage” in behaviour such as micro-facial expressions, changes in body language, vocal changes, or deceptive language.
Wealth Management Hiring is High Stakes
In financial services, the risks of a deceptive hire are amplified. Advisors hold positions of trust, have access to sensitive client information, and are responsible for managing significant assets. A bad hire might:
- Exaggerate or fabricate client experiences (“I’ve managed ultra-high-net-worth portfolios for years”).
- Misrepresent product expertise or licensing.
- Inflate past performance, sometimes even creating fake performance reports.
- Conceal reasons for leaving previous roles (such as client complaints or regulatory sanctions).
One anecdote making the rounds in the industry tells of a candidate who copied their name into the top 10 of their firm’s sales league table in Excel, printed it, and used it to impress at interviews, counting on the fact that the document wouldn’t be verified.
Applying “Cognitive Load” in the Interview Room
The good news is you don’t need to be a trained interrogator to spot deception. By applying a few key principles drawn from investigative interviewing and emotional intelligence, you can increase your chances of spotting a bad actor.
1. Ask open-ended questions and let them talk.
Truth-tellers don’t need to convince you they are telling the truth. Liars often over-explain in an attempt to persuade. By giving them room to speak, you allow them to build a more complex story that becomes harder to keep consistent.
2. Apply subtle pressure.
If a candidate is making bold claims, you might say, “I’ve got a call with your previous firm next week—what do you think they’ll say about your performance?” If they’re lying, the sudden thought of exposure may cause a visible flash of fear before they regain composure.
3. Use targeted verification cues.
Indicate that you’ve already verified—or will verify—specific details. Liars often adjust their story mid-interview when they sense their claims are being checked.
4. Revisit the same topic later.
Return to an earlier claim in a different context. Truthful memories are stable; it’s easy to tell the truth. Whereas fabricated accounts can unravel or change subtly under re-questioning. Two interviews also allow you to verify claims, which you can challenge later if inaccurate, potentially causing more leakage.
5. Pay attention to micro-signals.
These may include momentary facial expressions, sudden changes in tone or speed of speech, or body language that contradicts verbal assurances. To notice these, you need to get a sense of the candidate’s baseline behaviour early in an interview, so that changes are more noticeable. But beware, don’t confuse interview nerves for a sign of fear of being caught in a lie – the emotion is the same, but the trigger is different.
Training Your EI “Interview Radar”
Detecting deception requires being curious, not cynical. The best interviews are curious friends, asking powerful, open-ended questions to get to the truth. Emotional intelligence in hiring means reading both the facts and the feelings in the room, knowing when to probe deeper, and recognising when a candidate’s reaction doesn’t match their words.
In a profession built on trust, it’s worth investing in interviewer training that combines EI principles with practical questioning strategies. The payoff is substantial: reduced hiring risk, better cultural fit, and a stronger, more trustworthy advisory team.
