TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence Assessment: The Official Guide to the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®

Everything you need to know about TalentSmartEQ’s Emotional Intelligence Assessment Test, from the experts who developed it

Welcome to TalentSmartEQ’s Emotional Intelligence Appraisal® hub, your headquarters for everything you need to know about TalentSmart’s suite of emotional intelligence assessments.

This page provides a comprehensive overview of our research-backed, scientifically validated Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, an online EQ assessment, as well as a breakdown of the various editions we offer. As you’ll see below, our EQ assessment is not just a single online test that we expect to apply broadly across the spectrum of EQ test-takers, but a meticulously developed foundation that our experts have adapted to the most meaningful applications for individuals, teams, and organizations.

While this page will answer most of your high-level questions about our EQ assessments and emotional intelligence assessment tools, you’ll also find several opportunities to dive more deeply into a specific topic by following the links we’ve provided throughout. If you have questions we haven’t answered here, contact us directly to talk to someone who can answer them for you.

Jump to:

What is the TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence Assessment?

What Does the TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence Assessment Measure?

How to Use the TalentSmartEQ Assessment

Which TalentSmartEQ Assessment Is Right for You?

Is the TalentSmartEQ Assessment Research-Based?

Can You Retake the TalentSmartEQ Assessment?

Are TalentSmartEQ Assessment Results Private?

How Much Does the TalentSmartEQ Assessment Cost?

What is the TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence Assessment?

Let’s start with the basics: officially called the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, it might also be referred to as the TalentSmartEQ emotional intelligence assessment, the TalentSmart EQ test, the TalentSmart emotional intelligence test, or another similar variation. Under the umbrella of the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, specific editions include the Self Edition, Multi-Rater and 360° Editions, and the Teams Edition. We also offer a Leadership Appraisal–360° Refined Appraisal, which measures 22 key leadership skills including emotional intelligence.

The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal is an online emotional intelligence assessment designed to measure EQ as it shows up in behavior. It was developed around a skill-based model of emotional intelligence that is intuitive and easy to apply in the real world. Using 28 behavior-based questions, the EQ assessment provides an overall EQ score plus individual scores for each of the four core emotional intelligence skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Our assessment was built to quickly and accurately capture an individual’s EQ and provide personalized development recommendations based oneach user’s results. Scores come in a comprehensive feedback report that also includes reflection questions, recommended strategies, goal tracking, and access to TalentSmartEQ’s online development plans and resources, so test-takers can immediately begin putting their results into action.

Explore TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence Assessments

Ready to find out your EQ? Take the TalentSmartEQ Test

The TalentSmartEQ Assessment at a Glance

Attribute	Information
Official name	Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®
Provider	TalentSmartEQ
Format	Online
Questions	28, plus 2 open-ended questions for 360° editions
Response scale	Six-point frequency scale
Typical time	About 7-10 minutes
Scores	Overall EQ + four EQ skill scores
Score scale	Norm-converted 1-100 scale
Primary purpose	Emotional intelligence development
Options	Self, Multi-Rater, 360°, Teams
Retest	One complimentary retest included

Questions about the emotional intelligence assessment or your EQ assessment results? Visit our EQ Assessment FAQ page.

What Does the TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence Assessment Measure?

The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal uses targeted, behavior-focused questions to measure an individual’s emotional intelligence, which is the ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and use that awareness to manage your behavior and relationships effectively. The emotional intelligence assessment measures the frequency of specific behaviors across the four EQ skills, rather than simply testing your general knowledge about emotions. You rate how often these behaviors show up in your real life, from “never” to “always.” The result is a picture of how your emotional intelligence shows up in practice, not simply whether you can identify the “right” answer on an EQ assessment test.

Our 360° emotional intelligence assessments go a step further by inviting feedback from others who interact with you on a daily basis. The people you invite to take part in your assessment rate you on the same list of behaviors, not only giving you a more comprehensive understanding of your EQ but also a chance to evaluate the gaps between how you see yourself and how others see you.

Here’s an overview of the four core EQ skills measured by the TalentSmartEQ emotional intelligence assessment:

Self-Awareness

Your ability to recognize your emotions and understand how they influence your reactions across situations.

Self-Management

Your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and direct your behavior positively.

Social Awareness

Your ability to pick up on other people’s emotions and understand what is happening beneath the surface.

Relationship Management

Your ability to use awareness of your own emotions and others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.

These four skills are paired up under the two primary EQ competencies, personal competence and social competence. Self-awareness and self-management fall under personal competence, while social awareness and relationship management fall under social competence. TalentSmartEQ uses this four-skill EQ model across all of its assessments, training, coaching, certification, and development programs.

How to Use the TalentSmartEQ Assessment

While an EQ score can provide valuable insight to individuals, teams, and organizations, the TalentSmartEQ assessment is designed to create a starting point for emotional intelligence development. Individuals and organizations can use assessment results to identify strengths, focus development priorities, and guide practice, coaching, training, and feedback over time.

For individuals, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal® can help clarify which of the four core EQ skills, and which specific behaviors within those skills, offer the greatest opportunity for growth. From there, personalized strategies and development resources help turn assessment results into a practical plan.

For organizations, emotional intelligence assessments can anchor broader development efforts, including:

Leadership and management development
Coaching
Emotional intelligence training
Team development
Individual development planning
Ongoing learning and reinforcement
Measuring progress over time

The goal isn’t to keep taking assessments. It’s to use the assessment to choose a focus, practice new behaviors in real situations, learn from what happens, and translate results into action.

Can the TalentSmartEQ Assessment Be Used for Hiring?

The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal is an emotional intelligence assessment tool built for development and should not be used on its own to make hiring, screening, or promotion decisions.

Self-assessment works best when participants have a reason to answer candidly. When a job offer or other employment outcome depends on achieving a particular result, that incentive can change how someone responds and therefore what the assessment is measuring.

EQ can still play an important role in hiring and developing leaders, but TalentSmartEQ teaches organizations to identify evidence of emotionally intelligent behavior during the interview and selection process rather than treating a self-assessment score as a hiring test.

Once someone is hired, the assessment works well as an onboarding tool. This gives new hires a development starting point in their first weeks and, when it’s part of every new hire’s experience, it gives the organization a shared language for emotional intelligence from day one.

Which TalentSmartEQ Assessment Is Right for You?

Different development goals call for different perspectives. TalentSmartEQ offers several versions of the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal so individuals, leaders, and teams can choose the level of feedback that fits their situation.

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal^® — Self Edition

Best for: Individual development, establishing an EQ baseline, and identifying personal strengths and opportunities for growth.

The Self Edition measures how you perceive your own EQ behaviors. It includes an easy-to-read personalized report, strategy recommendations based on your results, online goal tracking, 16 e-learning lessons, and a complimentary retest.

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal^® — Multi-Rater Edition

Best for: Adding outside perspective and uncovering blind spots without separating feedback by rater group.

The Multi-Rater Edition compares your self-ratings with ratings from people who see you in action. Feedback from others is combined into one group, allowing you to focus on broader patterns between self-perception and how others experience your behavior.

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal^® — 360° Edition

Best for: Leadership development and situations where the perspectives of different stakeholder groups matter.

The 360° Edition also compares self-perception with external feedback, but separates the results into customizable groups such as peers, direct reports, leaders, or other stakeholders. This makes it easier to see whether different groups experience your EQ behaviors differently.

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal^® — Team Edition

Best for: Intact teams that want to understand and improve their emotional intelligence as a group.

Rather than assessing one individual’s EQ, the Team Edition examines how EQ-related behaviors show up across the team. TalentSmartEQ incorporates the Team assessment into strategic team development and action planning.

Looking for broader leadership feedback? TalentSmartEQ also offers the Leadership Appraisal – 360° Refined, which assesses 22 leadership skills, including emotional intelligence.

Compare TalentSmartEQ Emotional Intelligence assessment options

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and the TalentSmartEQ Assessment

If you found TalentSmartEQ through the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, the assessment is part of the book’s suggested development process.

Purchased copies of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 include access to the book edition of the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal^®. The assessment gives you a starting point, and the book provides 66 strategies targeting each of the four core components of EQ. We encourage anyone interested in meaningfully improving their EQ to explore our free resources, sign up for our EQ Essentials course, or attend our public workshops for further support and training.

If you already have a passcode:

Take the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 EQ Test

If you’ve already completed the assessment, you can return to the same portal to access your report. TalentSmartEQ’s assessment FAQ also provides instructions for passcodes, reports, retesting, and supported book formats.

Is the TalentSmartEQ Assessment Research-Based?

The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal has been developed and studied as an assessment of emotional intelligence for more than two decades.

Research and validation began in 2001, before the assessment’s public release in 2003. The development process included iterative item development and review by industrial-organizational psychology practitioners and experienced business professionals. The final assessment uses 28 behavioral items across the four EQ skills.

TalentSmartEQ’s Emotional Intelligence Appraisal Technical Manual documents the assessment’s theoretical model, item development, scoring, reliability, construct validity, comparison with other measures, and relationships with job-performance data.

TalentSmartEQ’s assessments have been subjected to rigorous statistical analysis to establish psychometric validity. Chronbach’s alpha values range from .79-.92 for self-tests and .85-.91 for 360° tests. Assessments also incorporate reverse-scored items and middle-weighted scoring to help reduce response bias. Studies across industries and the world support the EQ assessment test’s validity and ability to accurately measure EQ in just 28 questions, compared to most measures that unnecessarily average more than 100 questions and fatigue test-takers. Skills measured are significant indicators of job performance, with regression analyses yielding significant results at the 0.001 level.

The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal has also appeared in peer-reviewed research. A 2006 study published in Psicothema examined 212 employees across three organizations and compared the Appraisal with another emotional-intelligence measure and leader job performance. The authors were affiliated with TalentSmarEQ, so the study should be understood as peer-reviewed research rather than independent validation.

Psychometric validation is only one part of TalentSmartEQ’s broader research ecosystem. Recent TalentSmartEQ research combines survey input from nearly 700 leadership, HR, and L&D professionals with EQ data from more than 23,000 individuals, while case study analysis shows measurable change in real-world training programs.

Benchmarking Backed by Unmatched Scale and Complemented by Continual Refinement

Our database of more than 2 million completed assessments over three decades provides powerful benchmarking data by industry, job function, and level. This gives organizations meaningful context for their results, helping them understand how their people compare, identify patterns and development priorities, and make more informed decisions about where to focus their EQ investments.

Building from this time-tested foundation, we incorporate new research questions to monitor emerging workplace trends without changing the scored items that support our normative data. We continually modernize our assessment reports, development tools, sustainment resources, and applied programs surrounding the assessment.

Visit our Research & Insights library

Read examples of how organizations apply EQ assessment and development in practice.

Can You Retake the TalentSmartEQ Assessment?

Yes. A complimentary retest is included with each assessment, and it does not expire.

TalentSmartEQ sends a reminder at six months because meaningful change takes practice. In organizational programs, administrators can adjust the reminder timing to fit the development experience.

The point of retesting isn’t simply to see whether a number has moved. It’s to compare where you started with where you are after sustained, intentional practice, and to set new goals based on your progress.

Are TalentSmartEQ Assessment Results Private?

For individuals taking our assessment, your data is private and is only used in aggregate for data analysis and metrics.

For organizations administering our assessment as part of their professional development, access is limited to a small amount of program administrators for delivery and support.

TalentSmartEQ’s Privacy Policy explains more about what information may be collected during an online assessment, how that information is used to administer assessments and provide results, and how personal data may be handled by service providers and other parties.

How Much Does the TalentSmartEQ Assessment Cost?

Individual Self, Multi-Rater, and 360° assessments are available for online purchase. Because pricing can change, the current assessment page is the best place to see today’s options and prices.

See current assessment options and pricing

Every purchase of the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 includes access to the book edition of the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal.

Learn more about Emotional Intelligence 2.0

Take the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 EQ test

For Team Editions, participant licenses, organizational purchases, or volume options, contact TalentSmartEQ directly.

Start With Your EQ. Build From There.

An assessment is most useful when it leads to something.

Whether you’re developing your own EQ, building stronger leaders, or helping a team work better together, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal gives you a starting point and a practical way forward.