How to Interview Like a Personality Hire (Even If You're an Introvert): 7 Traits to Nail Your Interview

Personality Hires know that they can win you over. Embrace that energy!

I have a friend we will call Ted. Ted is an incredible friend. He is the first to reach out about going out to eat and catching up, he loves to travel, and he is an extreme extrovert who is always looking to have a good time.

But I met Ted through work. And while he exhibited all of these behaviors in the workplace, he also exhibited some others: laziness and a general apathy toward helping any of his assigned clients.

As a friend, Ted is amazing; as a coworker, he could be beyond frustrating. I once tried to help train him, at our manager’s request, and soon realized there was not much point, because he was not interested in paying attention to any of the training content. Urgent client issues did not faze him, because he was not interested in caring about the work he did. Needless to say, his time at the company was short-lived. In some ways that made our friendship easier to maintain, since I was no longer juggling the stress of managing his performance alongside an outside friendship.

Fast forward to today, and you would think Ted is unemployed and struggling to build a career. You would be wrong. Ted is thriving. Sure, he gets laid off more often than the average person, but just like that, he is back in a new position, often making the same amount or more than he did before. You sit back and wonder how he keeps landing jobs when you see other friends, with work ethics far stronger than Ted’s, laid off for months at a time. But the answer is actually very simple: Ted is a personality hire.

Not familiar with the term? A personality hire is someone hired not because of their skills and experience, but because of their charm, energy, and interpersonal skills. Personality hires nail the interview. They come across as someone you want as your desk mate or your after-work drinks buddy. That warm, friendly attitude makes interviewers excited to picture working together on team projects, and it can turn an otherwise dull job into something that feels fun during the workday.

And while you might think personality could never matter more than having the necessary skills, you would be surprised. One often-cited executive survey of Fortune 500 companies found that a large majority ranked personality as the most important trait in an applicant, with relevant skills further down the list.

The reasoning: skills can be learned on the job, but you cannot fundamentally change someone’s personality. That makes a strong personality a very desirable thing to walk in the door with.

If you are introverted, shy, self-conscious (or maybe all three) and reading this, you might be thinking one of two things:

1.   Is this why I am not getting jobs?

2.   Guess I am screwed, then.

And while some of the traits of a personality hire might not come to you naturally, there are some lessons you can take from them into your own interview process without overdoing it. Let's dive into some of the positive traits of the personality hires and how you can incorporate some of their methods into your own job search.

Read the Room: Develop and Use Emotional Intelligence

The first and most important trait of the personality hire? They know their audience. When starting an interview a person with high emotional intelligence will be able to feel out and match the energy of the person they are interviewing with. Interviewer seems quiet and tired? Dial back the exuberance and make them feel seen by asking how their day is. Interviewer very upbeat and brings up their recent travel plans? Launch into a story about your last vacation and a funny anecdote from it to make them laugh.

People with good emotional intelligence are active listeners and won't be caught daydreaming or asking someone to repeat what they said. They will also show empathy for others through their words and actions. Someone who pauses before answering a question also shows that they are taking in the question with sincerity and seriousness which can be appreciated in a hiring process.

If you think you lack emotional intelligence (you are someone who isn't always sure where they stand in conversations or can read the room easily) then doing some research on emotional intelligence techniques can help bridge the gap.

Everything Is Exciting, Even When It Is Not

Let's be honest. Applying for a job and having the recruiter tell you that the position is going to be going over hours of customer service tickets finding patterns might not come off as exciting to most people. But to the personality hire? It's go time!

Showing excitement or enthusiasm to any aspect of the job description comes off as someone who is ready to work and get things done. The interview is a great time to ask questions and get clarity about the job but not the time to share if that is something you would dislike doing. Save that for consideration on your own time and decide now that you have this information if this is an opportunity you still want to pursue.

Be Agreeable, Because Agreeable Reads as Adaptable

I once interviewed someone for a position and when I asked how they worked in a team they replied that they did not like working in teams because it felt like coworkers "stealing their work". I was genuinely shocked at the time because I thought everyone knew that being a team player was seen as a pretty key characteristic in the corporate America office structure but I was wrong.

Even if you feel the same way as that candidate, the interview is not the time to say it. If a job role is being laid out that you would rather bash your head against the wall than do, don't tell them. The interview is not the place to talk about potentially improvements or changes you would like to see in the role and you may come across as inflexible. Nobody wants someone who is going to join the team and not be a team player. Nod along and say that those all sound like things you would be great at.

Teamwork makes the dream work! Or maybe in this case makes sure we don't miss the project deadline.

Make Them Laugh

Someone once asked me how I get to the final rounds of so many interview processes and I told them my one secret: make them laugh at least once. Hiring managers are going to see tons of candidates during the interview process and so it can be hard to stand out. When it comes down to the wire of who moves to the next round, or the final decision between two similar candidates, something intangible often breaks the tie. What better intangible than a sense of humor?

This doesn't mean make a knock-knock joke. It can be as simple as bringing up the chaos of the weather you are experiencing recently or a short funny story of something that happened recently at your job. Taking yourself too seriously in the interview can you make you come off as an anxious or deeply serious person that may struggle to connect with coworkers or handle the workload at the job. Humor also can bridge the gap in power and put you and the hiring manager on a more level playing field, as telling jokes is reserved for friends and automatically starts putting you in the "friend" category.

Everyone wants to hire their new BFF

Confidence Is Key

This one may actually be the hardest on this list if you have been unemployed for a while. Nothing makes you lose confidence and enter into a depressive state faster than a slew of rejections emails hitting your inbox daily. But during the interview process you can’t let any of that show up in how you present yourself. You aren't just able to do this job, you are going to nail this job!

Personality Hires tend to be very confident people who project a self-assertive air when talking about themselves and what they do. They might get asked an interview question that they aren't sure how to answer but that won't stop them from giving some kind of answer with bravado. Hiring managers like seeing confidence because that makes them believe that you won't require hand-holding doing your daily-work. Even if your confidence is shaken from experiencing a layoff this is the time to fake it till you make it!

Put the Personality in Personality Hire

Someone who interviews well doesn't just project confidence and say the right things; they also stand out from the crowd. Sometimes a hiring manager is interviewing many people all at once and it may be difficult to determine who was really the stand out amongst all of the interviews. If everyone is polite, friendly, and engaged then how do you choose?

If your resume isn't going to set you apart, than your personality needs to. And that personality should be a match to the general culture of the company you are interviewing for.

Is this a start up with a fast-paced, high energy culture? Then now probably isn't the time for anecdote about how you love sitting at home watching re-runs of your favorite shows over and over. Now is the time to bring up when you went rock climbing in Costa Rica or even something as small as you tried a very ambitious recipe that took hours to cook just because you wanted to try something new.

It seems silly on the surface but without expressly saying so you are telling the hiring manager “I like to try new things that I don’t know how to do and I do it with enthusiasm!”. That is the type of person they want to hire for this role.

Toe the Line Between Fun and Irresponsible

I know I said have them picture you as someone they could go to happy hour with but I want to make sure we are the same page with what that means. A fun employee has one drink (maybe two, if everyone, including the boss, is drinking too) and then heads home after a couple of hours. An irresponsible employee downs five drinks, moves on to a second location to shut down the bar, and comes to work hungover the next day.

You want to give off the former, not the latter. It’s great to mention that you grabbed dinner with friends to try a new restaurant (it shows people like you and you try new things). It's not good to talk about how hammered you got at the concert you went to last night and how much fun you had.

Change Your Presentation, Not Who You Are

If you read through these tips and thought, “This is so not who I am,” that is okay. This advice is not about changing you into the loudest, most extroverted person in the room. It is about how you outwardly present yourself to a hiring manager, so you are putting your best foot forward.

If self-doubt creeps in, remember that they picked your resume out of hundreds, and that you can do this job. An introvert who prepares a few warm stories, practices matching energy, and lets a little humor through will often outperform the natural extrovert who coasts on charm and nothing else. You do not have to out-talk the personality hire. You just have to show up as a prepared, confident, human version of yourself.

The personality hire might get the interviews, but you can beat them at their own game by pairing real knowledge with a winning interview presence. Happy job hunting.

About the Author

Corporate Kate has spent nearly 15 years inside corporate tech, managing large teams and making the hiring decisions most job seekers never get to see. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance and writes about layoffs, careers, and money.