We have another tip for you today from the area of people and building successful teams – and it’s an important one!
NICE PERSONALITY: is it important or is it a Trap?
We regularly speak with business owners and managers who are quite interested in the personality of a candidate.
They’ve been burnt before by toxic individuals or those who couldn’t work well in a team, so now they really want to make sure the new person is going to be suitable for the role.
This all makes sense and is quite valid.
However…. the challenge of hiring and where the biggest mistakes happen, also start here.
There is more to know about people than their personality alone and sometimes that bad experience is not just because of personality.
“Personality” is not really the person themselves, but what most people will see (the “mask”) when meeting that individual.
This could be manners, the style, the way he or she is handling certain situations, reactions to stress, handling of people, attitudes towards different types of opposition, etc.
All of that put together in a package we could call the “personality”.
A common mistake is to believe that a test could describe who someone really is. Every person is totally unique and capable of thinking, dreaming, visualising, creating, making decisions, planning etc.
In fact each and every one of us is fully individual and that “uniqueness” cannot be measured in any personality test.
However, what can be measured is how or in which ways a person does things and their viewpoint.
A simple way to look at personality is to see it as a package of solutions to the problems of life. Like the carpenter who has his toolbox in order to handle every situation connected with building a house, every one of us has a set of “solutions” that we use to survive.
So when you, as the person interviewing a candidate gets either impressed or underwhelmed by a candidate at interview, realise that it is very likely you are making that decision based on first impressions which are proven to be unreliable and not related to how the person will add value in the role you are hiring for.
There are also many books and articles for candidates to study up on to become professionals at interviews – so you need to cut through that and get to the real person.
The person who gets the job should not be the one who makes the best impression.
Yes, personality is quite important and you absolutely need to know about it before you hire someone, but it should not be the only thing you are interested in.
You are hiring a new team member, and you want them to work on and place their attention on their job and tasks. On other hand, likeable candidates could place more attention on making a good impression and keeping their relationships with others.
The biggest problem is when you hire a likeable person, who has great relationship with other members of your team but does not produce any value.
Our advice is…
If you like the candidate, sharpen your senses and lay emphasis on the questions where you ask what were their results were in that particular job.
Get the facts regarding their production and put attention on exact information on their results. What effect did he create? What results could you see from their work?
In order to hire the right person for your company it is very important that they want to work and would like to see that their results are useful. Of course the bonus is they are also likeable. If it is other way around, you are hiring a person, who will cost you lots of money and others will have to do their job.
The best hiring outcome is a person who is adding value, productive, suited to the position, can cooperate well with others and are loyal.
Can you imagine the worst combination? They don’t suit the role, don’t get along with others, but they will be loyal and stay with you forever!
P.S. Do you know about our online ‘build your team’ training? You will learn that production and motivation are the absolute basics and you will learn how to spot productive and correctly motivated candidates. Contact us to find out more
PHOTO source: freepik.com