Background: Effective student selection methods are needed to identify applicants who are expected to complete their studies and succeed professionally. The assessment of emotional intelligence has recently been identified as an important element of student selection for nursing studies.

Purpose: This small-scale study, conducted in Finland, sought to capture the content of emotional intelligence that is considered relevant to social care and healthcare student selection from the perspectives of social care and healthcare educators and professionals.

Methods: Five semi-structured focus group interviews (n = 30) were conducted with the educators and professionals. The data were analysed qualitatively using both deductive and inductive content analyses.

Findings: The analysis of the data identified participants' perspectives on: perception of emotions, understanding emotions, accepting emotions, emotional management, emotional expression, utilising emotions and emotional awareness in social contexts. The participating educators and professionals indicated that applicants should demonstrate basic abilities across all these aspects of emotional intelligence in order to cope with the demands of social care and healthcare studies.

Conclusions: Findings support the notion of the comprehensive assessment of emotional intelligence in student selection contexts. By ascertaining whether students have adequate basic emotional intelligence abilities, the risk of emotional exhaustion during clinical practice could be reduced; higher education institutions may better be able to select applicants who are likely to complete their studies and who are willing and able to work as social care and healthcare professionals.