HOW FAR DO EMPLOYERS CONSIDER PERSONALITY?

In the past, interviews looked at intangible things like ‘character’, seeking evidence from your family background or schooling. Today, after a half century of attention to fairness in recruitment, employers are under pressure to seek only job-related evidence. However, CVs don’t come to work, people do, and accurately predicting how someone will perform in a role is notoriously difficult. Under scrutiny on diversity issues, some employers only ask set questions about competencies, and never ask why you want the job (so tell them anyway – most candidates won’t).

Employers don’t like to admit to selecting on personality, but they do so every day, asking ‘Can I work with this individual?’ and ‘Will this person fit into the team?’ Often personality requirements are not documented, so two interviews exist simultaneously; the first ticking boxes on skills and competencies, while beneath the surface a second conversation is going on, driven by the interviewer’s ‘gut feel’. Career coach Beverley Grant says: ‘In my experience eight or more out of ten candidates have not stopped to think about how important feelings are in an interview situation. Does anyone hire someone they don’t like? Do you want to work for someone you don’t like?’

Some employers test for specific personality traits, identifying factors such as extroversion, dominance, flexibility, robustness. These elements are then explored in behavioural questions looking at past situations, drawing out all the non-technical aspects of the job including attitude and team fit. Employers often believe they ‘hire for attitude, train for aptitude’ – most skills can be taught, but mindset is difficult to shift.

Personality factors are essential in a wide range of people-facing roles, and selectors will often be looking for the ability to build trust and win people over quickly. Leadership roles usually require an ability to influence others’ behaviour and a degree of self-awareness of your impact on others. Other roles rely more heavily on your thinking style, your flexibility in changing circumstances, goal orientation, and the ability to think analytically, plan and manage projects. Some roles require emotional stability – working under pressure and in the face of criticism. You won’t match all requirements – we are all a mix, with some factors stronger than others, and there is no ‘right’ balance. One accountant may be a strong analytical thinker not attuned to people, while another might shine at maintaining customer relationships.

KNOWING ENOUGH ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL STYLE

Successful managers are often relatively adaptable, capable of being directive or consultative, free thinking or rule-focused. Often the key thing is having enough self-awareness to know when to behave differently. Think about the way you react in different work situations. You’re a stickler for detail, but can you also throw the rulebook out of the window from time to time? You may not be the life and soul of the party, but can you come out of your shell enough to make someone feel comfortable and welcome? Look at areas that a skilled interviewer will probe:

Three key areas for improved self-awareness

1. Think of occasions when you acted in ways which were an appropriately flexible response to circumstances (e.g. consciously letting someone else take the lead when you are naturally bossy).
2. What is your preferred working situation – in other words, the team and work context that brings out the best in you?
3. Reflect, honestly, on how you act under pressure (e.g. you usually consult people carefully but under time pressure you just get on with things).

One thing is clear, as Chapter 10 on first impressions reveals: being outgoing, personable and easy to talk to gets a warm response close to an early ‘yes’. The good news is that you can adopt these behaviours. You probably do it already. Think about the last time you had to make a difficult phone call. You probably thought carefully about the words you would use, but also your tone of voice.

You don’t need to become a party animal overnight, or suddenly super-confident. You will do well at interview if you remember how to be you on a good day.

QUESTIONS TO EXPECT

You may receive a person specification outlining personal characteristics as well as skills and knowledge. Even if this information is not explicit, you can generally work it out from the adjectives used (consultative, diplomatic, organised, leader of change ...). Think of times where you clearly demonstrated these personal qualities – what were you doing? You can also work out hidden personality requirements by thinking yourself into the job. What problems will this job solve? Who will you be working with and alongside? What pressures will there be on your performance?

HIDDEN MESSAGES

Even if you’re answering questions about job knowledge or skill, you are subtly also answering questions about personality. Every answer you give contains a hidden message about your working style and your impact on others. For example, you might be describing your skills designing PowerPoint presentations, but in passing you mention your frustration at your boss who never briefs you properly and always drops tasks on you at the last moment. The interviewer’s attention has shifted – you’re broadcasting material on attitude and personality.

Watch out for the kind of discussion which is going to be a ‘hot button’ for personality evidence: following instructions; initiating and managing projects; innovation; teamworking; managing and motivating others; responding to criticism; working against deadlines; difficult colleagues or customers; working with people from backgrounds very different to your own.

REMEMBER THE DARK SIDE

A well-trained interviewer will probe for evidence of where things went wrong. Think about these stories in advance, because strong candidates talk about experiences where things didn’t work out as they expected, or even times when things went completely wrong, but then show how they learned from the experience. A bit of humility helps, too – interviewers are naturally suspicious of candidates who got everything right. Remember that you’re not building a fiction; you’re trying to convey what you are like when you are working confidently and ‘in the zone’. Often people are so worried about coming across as the wrong kind of person they try to hide evidence rather than showing a flexible working style.

HANDLING DIFFICULT PERSONAL QUESTIONS

Any question about your personal working style feels slightly invasive, particularly when it comes to your areas of vulnerability. Even people who are confident selling a product or service can find it hard to talk about themselves – selling yourself is a much riskier business, and ‘no’ feels much more personal. So, the reality is that both acceptable and unprofessional questions about personality are tricky to handle because we respond to them emotionally as well as intellectually.

The following provides a summary of the kinds of questions that are likely to come up, and some thoughts about how you deal with them:

• Relationships – can you establish them quickly? Can you build long-term relationships of trust? Employers like to hear that you can work with many different types of people to get things done – that when called for you can be polite, charming, diplomatic, motivating and stand your own ground when you need to.
• Influence – how effective are you at persuading others to think or act differently? Do you do this best verbally or in writing?
• Decision making – think about how you normally make decisions. It’s good to have examples of where you have done this cautiously, consultatively, taking account of facts and risks, but also times when you have grasped the nettle and trusted your judgement.
• Resilience – how long does it take you to bounce back after receiving tough criticism or a rejection? Your job search history will provide valuable clues.
• Attention to detail (how much detail is very job-specific) – are you a natural quality control person, or have you learned to delegate this to others?
• Diplomacy – how easy it for you to communicate effectively in a delicate situation? If this is not a strength, think about where you have sensibly farmed this out to someone with better ‘radar’.
• Management style – if the position is a management role prepare short statements about your style as a manager. Employers usually like to hear that you get things done, on time and on target, without treading on too many toes.
• Are you consultative? Again, it’s good to have examples of where you have taken consultation seriously, and times when you have recognised that you needed to act fast on limited information.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Most interviewers seem to find it important to ask about your strengths and weaknesses (perhaps because the world of business is steeped in SWOT analysis). My experience is that selection decisions are rarely made on these answers. To be safe don’t talk about personal characteristics as strengths – talk about skills which closely match the job.

Some interviewees find it much easier to talk about their weaknesses than their strengths, so you may have to practise talking about what you have done well. When you do so, imagine you are talking about someone else – be accurate rather than over-egging or under-selling.

Interviewers usually tune out when candidates talk about strengths, then pay close attention to weaknesses in the hope that you will shoot yourself in the foot. So, don’t introduce anything negative enough to raise concerns. It’s often appropriate to talk about skills you want to develop further.

Classic advice suggests that you name weaknesses which are actually strengths (stickler for detail, workaholic, frustrated by lack of commitment in others) but unless you pitch this well it can sound clichéd. Career coach Ann Reynolds says: ‘Tackle anything you fear might put the employer off selecting you, and tell them why this won’t be a problem’, so for example your approach might be to say, ‘You might be concerned that I don’t have enough big company experience, but in fact I have undertaken big consultancy projects with a range of blue chip organisations.’

Careers specialist Robin Rose’s advice is not to use textbook answers, but refocus the question on your agenda: ‘“I’ve looked at the job description and I don’t see any gaps.” Admit any skill area where you may have to brush up and state, “I am confident I can do the job and in any event I’m a quick learner.”’

CURVE BALL, LEFT FIELD, FANTASY AND DIFFICULT

Officially all selectors nod to the principle that questions should be fair and designed to see if you can do the job. In practice some of them come up with very strange questions – some interviewers believe that ‘clever’, quirky questions sort the sheep from the goats. The real reason, I suspect, is that interviewers get bored and want to spice things up.

There is no evidence to link quirky questions to evidence of job capability, but interviewers take a secret pride in inventing them: ‘If you were a song, what song would you be? What’s on your mantelpiece at home?’ ‘Are you a cat or a dog?’ The Internet is full of examples.

Sometimes they are fantasy questions which may or may not be related to the job (‘If you were a car, what model would you be?’), while others seek out ingenuity or lateral thinking (‘If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it?’). If you are going for a job requiring creative thinking, work out how you would tackle something like this. A small number of employers require candidates to undertake an even stranger mix of embarrassing tasks such as telling a joke or singing a song. They may just provide clues about candidates’ ability to fit into certain cultures, but most times all that happens is that extroverts and actors get offers, not the people who can do the job.

Try to respond with good humour. Don’t get flustered, because the only wrong answer is where you freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. Think of the very last item on Question Time – the witty, light response works best. If nothing else, say ‘As I’ll probably think of a great answer on the way home, can I email you later?’ or ‘You’ve got me there. I normally ask what animal in the jungle you’d be’, and, whatever you do, smile.

Some questions are more appropriate than they seem. If higher reasoning is required, you might get the question put to one Cambridge University entrant: ‘How do you know that California exists?’ Some oddball questions are tests of lateral thinking and approximation; for example, ‘How many light bulbs are in this building?’ or ‘How many packets of jelly would you need to fill St Paul’s Cathedral?’ (yes, there are rare candidates who can answer that by approximating cubic capacity). Remember that if you are asked to make calculations under pressure it is the thought process that counts, and an intelligent approximation rather than an exact figure is often acceptable.