Emotional Intelligence Interview Questions for Hiring Managers

Twelve questions, grouped by the moment they test

Pick the three or four that match what the role demands. A support lead needs the customer and pressure questions; a new manager needs the feedback and conflict ones. Ask them as written, in the same order, for every candidate.

What a strong answer sounds like next to a weak one

None of these signals requires the candidate to be warm, chatty or extroverted. A quiet person who describes a hard conversation in careful detail is showing more of the skill than a charming one who speaks in generalities. The answer on whether introverts can have high emotional intelligence goes into why that confusion is so common.

Probes that get past the rehearsed version

Many candidates arrive with polished stories. The probe is where you learn whether the story happened the way it is told. Use the same probes for everyone so the stronger storytellers don’t get an easier ride.

A 2014 review of two decades of research on structured interviews covers the same design choices this page uses: asking every candidate the same questions, past-behavior versus hypothetical questions, written rating scales, and how much to probe. (Levashina and colleagues, 2014) The review is also candid that many questions about structured interviews remain open, so treat these as sound practice, not a guarantee of a better hire.

Score each answer before anyone discusses it

Scoring before the debrief matters because the most senior or most confident voice in the room otherwise sets everyone’s view of a candidate. A score on paper is harder to quietly revise.

Hypothetical questions and situational tests

You can also describe a realistic situation from the job and ask what the candidate would do. That is the logic of a situational judgment test, and as a format it has a decent track record in hiring:

The lesson for an interview is to write the scenario from your own job, decide in advance which responses you would count as strong, and score against that. A hypothetical asked on the fly and judged by gut feel loses most of what made the format work.

Why EQ questionnaires should stay out of hiring

It is tempting to add an emotional intelligence questionnaire to the process. The evidence argues against it. Across many workplace studies, self-reported EQ was linked to supervisor-rated performance at about ρ = .29, but that link disappeared once personality, self-efficacy, self-rated performance, ability EI and general mental ability were taken into account. (Joseph and colleagues, 2015) And in three studies, how people rated their own emotional abilities did not line up strongly with how they performed on an ability test. (Brackett and colleagues, 2006)

If you want to know what the EQTiger test is designed for, it is a private self-reflection exercise for the person taking it. For a wider view of how far online tests can be trusted, see whether online EQ tests are accurate.

Mistakes interviewers make with these questions

• Rewarding fluency. A practiced storyteller is not necessarily the person who handled the moment best. Probe everyone equally.
• Marking down a candidate for describing anger or anxiety honestly. Admitting the feeling and describing what they did with it is a strong answer.
• Treating eye contact, warmth or small talk as evidence. Norms for all three vary across cultures and people, and none of them was in your scale.
• Asking about personal territory. Stay with work situations; your HR team will know which topics are off limits where you hire.
• Forgetting that the interview is a sample of the candidate’s worst-case stress. Some people tell their stories better on day thirty than in minute ten.

For what emotional skills actually add to job performance, and where the research is weaker than the hype, read how much emotional intelligence matters at work. If you are hiring a manager, the guide to emotionally intelligent leadership covers the behaviors worth asking about.