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. Ted is the first to reach out about going out to eat and catch up, loves to travel, and is an extreme extrovert 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 other behaviors as well: 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 attempted to help train him as an ask by our manager and soon realized there wasn't really a point as he wasn't that interested in paying attention to any of the training content. Urgent client issues didn't really phase him because he wasn't super interested in caring about the work he did. Needless to say that his time at the company was short lived. In some ways that made our friendship easier to maintain as I was no longer juggling the stress of managing his work performance with an outside friendship.

Fast forward to the future and you would think Ted is unemployed and struggling to have a career but you would be wrong. Ted is thriving. Sure he gets laid off potentially more than the average person, but just like that he is back into a new position often making the same amount or more than he had been previously. You sit back and wonder how he keeps managing to find jobs when we see other friends laid off for months at a time with a work ethic significantly better than Ted. But the answer is actually very simple: Ted is a personality hire.

Not familiar with this term? Personality hire describes someone that is hired not because of their skills and experience but because of their charm, energy, and interpersonal skills. Personality hires nail the interview process. They come off as someone you want to have as your desk mate or go to get drinks with after work. That warm and friendly attitude makes interviewers excited to picture working together on team projects that could take otherwise dull jobs into something fun during the workday.

And while you might think that surely personality doesn't matter over having the necessary skills you would actually be wrong. A 2013 executive study found that among Fortune 500 companies, 78% percent placed personality as the most important trait of an applicant and having the relevant skills was placed in third. The reason given is that while skills can be learned on the job, it's much harder to change someone's personality. This makes hiring someone with a good personality a very desirable trait at the onset.

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'm 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.

1. Read the Room: Develop and Execute 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.

2. Everything is Exciting, Even When It's 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.

3. Be Agreeable. Agreeable = Adaptable

I one time was interviewing 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.

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

4. 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 coming down the wire of who to pass through to the next round or who to pick in the final battle between two candidates something intangible may need to be brought to the table to decide between similar options. What better intangible than the candidate with 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

5. 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 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!

6. 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 here, 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 that 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.

7. Toe The Line of Fun vs 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 is one that gets one drink (maybe two if everyone plus the boss is as well) and then goes home after a couple of hours of hanging out. An irresponsible employee downs 5 drinks, heads to a new location to shut down the bar that night and come to work hungover the next day.

You want to give off the former and not the latter. It’s great to mention that you grabbed dinner with friends to try a new restaurant (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's ok! This advice isn't about changing you into the loudest and most extroverted person in the room. What it is for is to think about how you outwardly present yourself to a hiring manager to make sure you are putting your best foot forward. If you constantly experience self-doubt, remember that they picked your resume above hundreds of others and that you CAN do this job. Not sure you love on the job roles they described at the beginning? Put on your winning smile and wait to express any concerns until after you have landed the role.

I say this as someone who is a huge introvert and prefers the company of close friends over talking to strangers. The interview process can feel unnatural to me as I have to lean on small talk and having a sunny disposition, neither of which is something I enjoy with those I do not have close bonds with. It's not about becoming a different person in my case, it is about showcasing the other facets of my personality that I do not usually employ with strangers.

The personality hire might get the interviews but you can beat them at their own game by having the knowledge and the winning interview to make it to the next round. Happy job hunting!