You wouldn’t choose to hang out with someone on a consistent basis that you have little in common with, right? So why should that not be a factor when screening a candidate for a position within your organization? If you’re anything like me, you spend the majority of your waking hours Monday through Friday at work and if I had to work people I had nothing in common with (BESIDES work) I’d go crazy!
While we do a good job of screening candidates here I know that personality doesn’t always win out when it comes to hiring, which in my opinion is a big mistake, but I wanted to validate my feelings so I turned to the masses.
We recently asked more 7,400 professionals across the Beyond.com Career Network, “Should the person that is most qualified get the job?” and more than 73 percent said that a candidate’s personality should play a part when bringing new employees on board. But there are of course always exceptions to the rule.
Sometimes you’re looking for that specific skill set that can only be found in a personality type that doesn’t mesh with your corporate culture, so sometimes it’s unavoidable, but in the long run hiring people that ease into the team will make going to work that much easier for everyone else.
So how do you ensure you’re hiring candidates that fit?
- Know the typical personality type of the position you’re filling and stick to those guidelines throughout the interview process.
- Ask the appropriate interview questions that will draw out the candidate’s true-self-not just their interview-self (or as I like to call it “first-date-self").
- Have the job candidates take a personality test, so you can see what kind of worker they are, how they handle stress, etc…
- Have the team members that will be working closest with this person have the final say. By the time the potential employee meets the team, there should already be a pretty good sense of the candidate’s skill set—so the team should be able to give a quick yay or nay on if they’ll mesh.
- Set expectations for the candidate appropriately. To avoid any confusion or miscommunication, make sure the potential teammate has a clear idea of what the job entails and how the organization works as a whole.
- Don’t hire someone out of desperation. When you make that offer make sure it’s to a candidate that’s going to be the best person for the job when it comes to both skill set and personality. Don't do it because you need to fill a spot and you need to do it NOW!
