EQ Interview Questions

So, my flight gets cancelled at the Seattle airport and a colleague asks me by email if I know of a resource that provides interview questions according to the 15 EQ Competencies of the BarOn model of EQ. No, I don’t, I say, but here, let me have a crack at it since my flight was just cancelled and I’ve got some time ;-) Let me know what you think.

• Emotional Self-Awareness: Tell me about a time when your awareness of your own emotions caused you to change your plan of action.
• Assertiveness: Tell me about a time when you spoke up knowing that by doing so you were taking a risk.
• Self-Regard: Please tell us what we can expect as a “Return” on our investment (your salary) in you.
• Independence: Tell us about a time when you took a critical action in the workplace without being directed to do so.
• Self-Actualization: Tell us about a time when you felt most fulfilled. What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment? What are you proud of?
• Empathy: You notice a co-worker choking back tears throughout a meeting. Nobody else seems to notice because of the way he/she is sitting. The meeting ends. You both get up to leave. What do you do?
• Social Responsibility: Tell us your thoughts on how you think you can “give back to others/make the world a better place/help others/ be of service” by simply carrying out the duties required by this job.
• Interpersonal Relationship: What are your thoughts about developing friendships with your coworkers?
• Problem Solving: Describe a problem you discovered in a previous job and what you did about it. Describe a problem that you solved where you are particularly proud of the solution you came up with. How did you go about solving it?

• Flexibility: Describe a situation where you had to be extremely flexible.
• Reality Testing: Are you more of a dreamer or more of a realist? Give me an example of how someone observing might know this about you.
• Stress Tolerance: Tell me how you deal with stress. What do you do to proactively deal with stress. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a lot of stress and how you handled it.
• Impulse Control: Tell me about your ability to resist the temptation to do things you may later regret. Have you ever done something you later regretted?
• Happiness: Tell me about a time in your life when you experienced a great deal of “life satisfaction.” What makes you “happy?” Define “happiiness” for me.
• Optimism: Describe your general attitude to work and life. What does “good attitude” mean to you? This glass I’m holding, how would you describe it – as half-full or half-empty and what’s the difference – is there a difference – does it matter?

There you go right off the cuff!

I hope this helps – at least you get the idea from my perspective.

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