Here’s a hot take: The science of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is dubious, confusing, and anything but settled. When it comes to talent identification, that can be a problem.
First, what is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?
We tend to measure EQ in the same way we do IQ: Using a test with a series of questions. But emotion and cognitive ability are totally different, and as sciencealert.com points out, ‘It’s much more difficult to measure EI scores as often emotion-based questions do not have one correct answer.’ Add to this the fact that many EQ tests rely on self-reported data, and you can see how IQ and EQ are not simply two equal sides of the coin that make up a person.
That’s not to say that Emotional Intelligence doesn’t exist, just that it’s a roundabout way of measuring personality traits and behaviours that other mechanisms, such as the HEXACO personality inventory, do more reliably and effectively. EQ also carries the issue of ranking certain traits as more desirable or ‘better’ than others – for example, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness.
The trap of over-weighting agreeableness
When we say someone has good or high EQ, what we tend to mean is that they’re friendly, kind, self-aware, and generally speaking, extraverted. They can adjust their tone and approach depending on who they’re talking to. They’re not known to be rude, or brash, or talk too much.
That’s an estimation of someone with good EQ, and this is the problem: It’s an empirical judgment. And while we think we’re describing someone who is emotionally intelligent, we’re really describing someone who is high in agreeableness, emotionality, openness, and other more valid measures of personality. Sounds like a great person, sure, but not necessarily a better type of person for every situation.
Consider this: Many studies have shown that disagreeable people tend to perform better over their career than people who are polite, kind, and friendly. A great proportion of CEOs, be they women or men, are high in disagreeableness. It’s easy to see why: though there are many downsides to disagreeableness, it pays, in many situations, to possess the ability to be combative, straightforward, and brutally honest. To think of disagreeableness as inherently worse than agreeableness is misguided and, at worst, discriminatory.
And even if that is not true, and all of the varied and ever-changing definitions of Emotional Intelligence lead to better job performance, how do we even measure it accurately?
How do you accurately measure Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?
In the context of hiring, EQ is often used as a gut-feel heuristic we apply to people with whom we gel. Even in structured face-to-face interviews, it can be very difficult to assign as score to the different measures of EQ.
Imagine someone is sitting across from you in an interview. By sight, they appear to be an average person in every way. So, by your questions and their responses, how do you measure their:
- Self-awareness. What are the repeatable, verifiable signals of someone who is aware of themselves? Is it their propensity to correct statements mid-sentence? Is it the way they ask you where to sit before committing to a position? Is it the way they maintain eye-contact? How much or little eye-contact do you need to be satisfied of above-average self-awareness?
- Adaptability, teamwork, or ability to influence. Sure, you might ask them about a time where they had to apply abstract thinking to resolve a stressful situation, but how do you rate their answer objectively? Experience may tell you that they have been adaptable, and that’s all well and good, but how do you rank that against someone who is, personality-wise, highly geared for adaptability, but has not had the opportunity to prove it? In other words, how do you assess potential fairly, from candidate to candidate?
The alternative to measuring EQ badly
Again, aside from face-value judgments of agreeableness and social tact, it’s near-on impossible to assess EQ in any fair or meaningful way. That’s not even accounting for the many biases we, as humans, bring to the hiring process. You might, with some accuracy, be able to appraise a person’s EQ once it’s been proven, but that’s not useful at all in recruitment. In hiring, you’re hedging against unknowns, hoping for the best.
That’s what makes accurate personality assessment so critical – and why we built our Ai Smart Interviewer. It finds you the people you need based on an accurate, HEXACO-based assessment of their personality. One interview, via chat, is all it takes.
We look at the critical power skills – communication, emotionality, empathy, openness, and so on – and profile all candidates fairly against one another. So you’re ranking suitability on objective and repeatable measures. No guesswork involved. No bias.
You bet it works. 94% of the 2+ million candidates we’ve interviewed found their personality insights accurate and valuable. On average, 80% of the candidates who experience our interview process recommend you as an employer of choice, even if they don’t get the job.
Someone with an ostensibly high EQ is, in most cases, someone you might want. But appearances can be deceiving, and humans, by nature, are not good at objectively assessing personality. We’re just not, period.
Get the help you need, and you’ll quickly hire the people you want.
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Blog
New Research Proves the Value of AI Hiring
A new study has just confirmed what many in HR have long suspected: traditional psychometric tests are no longer the gold standard for hiring.
Published in Frontiers in Psychology, the research compared AI-powered, chat-based interviews to traditional assessments, finding that structured, conversational AI interviews significantly reduce social desirability bias, deliver a better candidate experience, and offer a fairer path to talent discovery.
We’ve always believed hiring should be about understanding people and their potential, rather than reducing them to static scores. This latest research validates that approach, signalling to employers what modern, fair and inclusive hiring should look like.
The problem with traditional psychometric tests
While used for many decades in the absence of a more candidate-first approach, psychometric testing has some fatal flaws.
For starters, these tests rely heavily on self-reporting. Candidates are expected to assess their own traits. Could you truly and honestly rate how conscientious you are, how well you manage stress, or how likely you are to follow rules? Human beings are nuanced, and in high-stakes situations like job applications, most people are answering to impress, which can lead to less-than-honest self-evaluations.
This is known as social desirability bias: a tendency to respond in ways that are perceived as more favourable or acceptable, even if they don’t reflect reality. In other words, traditional assessments often capture a version of the candidate that’s curated for the test, not the person who will show up to work.
Worse still, these assessments can feel cold, transactional, even intimidating. They do little to surface communication skills, adaptability, or real-world problem solving, the things that make someone great at a job. And for many candidates, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, the format itself can feel exclusionary.
The Rise of Chat-Based Interviews
Enter conversational AI.
Organisations have been using chat-based interviews to assess talent since before 2018, and they offer a distinctly different approach.
Rather than asking candidates to rate themselves on abstract traits, they invite them into a structured, open-ended conversation. This creates space for candidates to share stories, explain their thinking, and demonstrate how they communicate and solve problems.
The format reduces stress and pressure because it feels more like messaging than testing. Candidates can be more authentic, and their responses have been proven to reveal personality traits, values, and competencies in a context that mirrors honest workplace communication.
Importantly, every candidate receives the same questions, evaluated against the same objective, explainable framework. These interviews are structured by design, evaluated by AI models like Sapia.ai’s InterviewBERT, and built on deep language analysis. That means better data, richer insights, and a process that works at scale without compromising fairness.
Key Findings from the Latest Research
The new study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, put AI-powered, chat-based interviews head-to-head with traditional psychometric assessments, and the results were striking.
One of the most significant takeaways was that candidates are less likely to “fake good” in chat interviews. The study found that AI-led conversations reduce social desirability bias, giving a more honest, unfiltered view of how people think and express themselves. That’s because, unlike multiple-choice questionnaires, chat-based assessments don’t offer obvious “right” answers – it’s on the candidate to express themselves authentically and not guess teh answer they think they would be rewarded for.
The research also confirmed what our candidate feedback has shown for years: people actually enjoy this kind of assessment. Participants rated the chat interviews as more engaging, less stressful, and more respectful of their individuality. In a hiring landscape where candidate experience is make-or-break, this matters.
And while traditional psychometric tests still show higher predictive validity in isolated lab conditions, the researchers were clear: real-world hiring decisions can’t be reduced to prediction alone. Fairness, transparency, and experience matter just as much, often more, when building trust and attracting top talent.
Sapia.ai was spotlighted in the study as a leader in this space, with our InterviewBERT model recognised for its ability to interpret candidate responses in a way that’s explainable, responsible, and grounded in science.
Why Trust and Candidate Agency Win
Today, hiring has to be about earning trust and empowering candidates to show up as their full selves, and having a voice in the process.
Traditional assessments often strip candidates of agency. They’re asked to conform, perform, and second-guess what the “right” answer might be. Chat-based interviews flip that dynamic. By inviting candidates into an open conversation, they offer something rare in hiring: autonomy. Candidates can tell their story, explain their thinking, and share how they approach real-world challenges, all in their own words.
This signals respect from the employer. It says: We trust you to show us who you are.
Hiring should be a two-way street – a long-held belief we’ve had, now backed by peer-reviewed science. The new research confirms that AI-led interviews can reduce bias, enhance fairness, and give candidates control over how they’re seen and evaluated.
Blog
AI Maturity in the Enterprise
Barb Hyman, CEO & Founder, Sapia.ai
It’s time for a new way to map progress in AI adoption, and pilots are not it.
Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to see inside dozens of enterprise AI programs. As a CEO, founder, and recently, judge in the inaugural Australian Financial Review AI Awards.
And here’s what struck me:
Despite the hype, we still don’t have a shared language for AI maturity in business.
Some companies are racing ahead. Others are still building slide decks. But the real issue is that even the orgs that are “doing AI” often don’t know what good looks like.
You don’t need more pilots. You need a maturity model.
The most successful AI adoption strategy does not have you buying the hottest Gen AI tool or spinning up a chatbot to solve one use case. What it should do is build organisational capability in AI ethics, AI governance, data, design, and most of all, leadership.
It’s time we introduced a real AI Maturity Model. Not a checklist. A considered progression model. Something that recognises where your organisation is today and what needs to evolve next, safely, responsibly, and strategically.
Here’s an early sketch based on what I’ve seen:
The 5 Stages of AI Maturity (for real enterprises)
- Curious
- Awareness is growing across leadership
- Experimentation led by innovation teams
- Risk is unclear, appetite is cautious
- AI is seen as “tech”
- Reactive
- Gen AI introduced via vendors or tools (e.g., copilots, agents)
- Some pilots show promise, but with limited scale or guardrails
- Data privacy and sovereignty questions begin to surface
- Risk is siloed in legal/IT
- Capable
- Clear policies on privacy, bias, and governance
- Dedicated AI leads or councils exist
- Internal use cases scale (e.g., summarisation, scoring, chat)
- LLMs integrated with guardrails, safety reviewed
- Strategic
- AI embedded in workflows, not layered on
- LLM/data infrastructure is regionally compliant
- AI outcomes measured (accuracy, equity, productivity)
- Teams restructured around AI capability — not just tech enablement
- AI-Native
- AI informs and transforms core decisions (hiring, pricing, customer service)
- Enterprise builds proprietary intelligence
- FAIR™/RAI principles deeply operationalised
- Talent, systems, and leadership are aligned around an intelligent operating model
Why this matters for enterprise leaders
AI is a capability.And like any capability, it needs time, structure, investment, and a map.
If you’re an HR leader, CIO, or enterprise buyer, and you’re trying to separate the real from the theatre, maturity thinking is your edge.
Let’s stop asking, “Who’s using AI?”
And start asking: “How mature is our AI practice and what’s the next step?”
I’m working on a more complete model now, based on what I’ve seen in Australia, the UK, and across our customer base. If you’re thinking about this too, I’d love to hear from you.
Blog
Beyond the Black Box: Why Transparency in AI Hiring Matters More Than Ever
For too long, AI in hiring has been a black box. It promises speed, fairness, and efficiency, but rarely shows its work.
That era is ending.
“AI hiring should never feel like a mystery. Transparency builds trust, and trust drives adoption.”
At Sapia.ai, we’ve always worked to provide transparency to our customers. Whether with explainable scores, understandable AI models, or by sharing ROI data regularly, it’s a founding principle on which we build all of our products.
Now, with Discover Insights, transparency is embedded into our user experience. And it’s giving TA leaders the clarity to lead with confidence.
Transparency Is the New Talent Advantage
Candidates expect fairness. Executives demand ROI. Boards want compliance. Transparency delivers all three.
Even visionary Talent Leaders can find it difficult to move beyond managing processes to driving strategy without the right data. Discover Insights changes that.
“When talent leaders can see what’s working (and why) they can stop defending their strategy and start owning it.”
Metrics That Make Transparency Real (and Actionable)
🕒 Time to Hire
What it is: The median time between application and hire.
Why it matters: This is your speedometer. A sharp view of how long hiring takes and how that varies by cohort, role, or team helps you identify delays and prove efficiency gains to leadership.
Faster time to hire = faster access to revenue-driving talent.
💬 Candidate Sentiment, Advocacy & Verbatim Feedback
What it is: Satisfaction scores, brand advocacy measures, and unfiltered candidate comments.
Why it matters: Many platforms track satisfaction. Sapia.ai’s Discover Insights takes it further, measuring whether that satisfaction translates into employer and consumer brand advocacy.
And with verbatim feedback collected at scale, talent leaders don’t have to guess how candidates feel. They can read it, learn from it, and take action.
You don’t just measure experience. You understand it in the candidates’ own words.
🔍 Drop-Off Rates, Funnel Visibility & Automation That Works
What it is: The percentage of candidates who exit the hiring process at different stages, and how to spot why.
Why it matters: Understanding drop-off points lets teams fix friction quickly. Embedding automation early in the funnel reduces recruiter workload and elevates top candidates, getting them talking to your hiring teams faster.
Assessment completion benchmarks in volume hiring range between 60–80%, but with a mobile-first, chat-based format like Sapia.ai’s, clients often exceed that.
Optimising your funnel isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing smarter, with less effort and better outcomes.
📈 Hiring Yield (Hired / Applied)
What it is: The percentage of completed applications that result in a hire.
Why it matters: This is your funnel efficiency score. A high yield means your sourcing, screening, and selection are aligned. A low one? There’s leakage, misfit, or missed opportunity.
Hiring yield signals funnel health, recruiter performance, and candidate-process fit.
🧠 AI Effectiveness: Score Distribution & Answer Originality
What it is: Insights into how candidate scores are distributed, and whether responses appear copied or AI-generated.
Why it matters: In high-volume hiring, a normal distribution of scores suggests your assessment is calibrated fairly. If it’s skewed too far left or right, it could be too hard or too easy, and that affects trust.
Add in answer originality, and you can track engagement integrity, protecting both your process and your brand.
From Metrics to Momentum
To effectively lead, you need more than simply tracking; you need insights enabling action.
When you can see how AI impacts every part of your hiring, from recruiter productivity to candidate sentiment to untapped talent, you lead with insight, not assumption. And that’s how TA earns a seat at the strategy table.