Does your personality match your job?

Do you have the right ‘personality’ for that dream job you’re interviewing for? If this question leaves you baffled, then it might perhaps be time to reflect upon it and figure out the nuances of your personality.

After emotional quotient, it is now a candidate’s personality which employers are giving much value to.

Defined as a combination of qualities that constitute a person’s distinct character and make an individual act in a particular manner in different situations, personality plays a crucial role in an organisation’s profits and growth.

Says Ashish Shah, co-founder and COO, Pepperfry, “While relevant skill-sets and qualifications hold utmost importance, one’s personality complements these skills and therefore, is an equally essential determinant of the selection process. It is even more imperative to ensure that the employees’ attitude and characteristics are aligned with the larger organisational DNA.”

Organisations are increasingly making use of personality tests which rely on assessments to identify the strengths and weaknesses in prospective employees and then map job roles with the relevant strengths.

Rajesh Padmanabhan, director & Group CHRO, Welspun Group, says the competencies needed for a role are assessed against what a candidate brings and the outcome clearly states the percentage fit vis-à-vis the role on an exhaustive set of dimensions.

“Most of the tools give you an exhaustive range of capabilities to select from. It is important for the hiring manager to be trained on the tool, as well as to ensure that they use it right for the purpose of decision-making. These tools can be customised for an enterprise’s needs. There are also a few open source personality profiling tools on social platforms to support smaller companies and startups.”

HR experts say deploying an individual with the right personality makeup ensures better workplace productivity, efficiency, enhances output, motivation and job satisfaction.

“An employee feels that he/she is ‘made for the job’ and is highly satisfied with his/her role, leading to greater retention. Improved productivity & output and longer tenures help curb employee costs and work towards the profits of the company,” says Rajan AS, a recruitment expert.

Padmanabhan says every role has ‘what’ to do and deliver and ‘how’ it is done. “The ‘what’ part are the hard skills that are technical and domain specific. The personality traits tell you ‘how’ to do the role well.”

Although the personality traits that orgnisations look for could defer from company to company, candidates vying for the role of a sales head should be solution-focused, results-oriented and with strong personas; while individuals seeking the role of a production head should have a cost obsession and service orientation.

But not all companies seek out such specifics.

“Pepperfry believes in having generalists and puts greater thrust on the learning agility. The key personality traits we seek are the ability to adapt to dynamic situations, passion, a go-getter disposition, an innovative mindset and a make-it-happen attitude. We believe people with such traits will challenge the status quo, push boundaries, own responsibilities and ensure results even during adverse conditions,” says Shah. He adds that #trektothetop, a learning initiative at Pepperfry reflects their belief. “It is a two-day trek which entails mental and physical exercises and every employee goes through it. Trekking pushes people to their maximum limit and beyond, which is exactly the attitude we encourage.”

Despite its many advantages, too much emphasis on personality is also not the right way for companies, feel some experts. “Some organisations tend to over-emphasize on personality traits. While there are many studies that build a co-relation of personality traits to specific job role, there are tons of studies that speak of humans having an ability to adapt; this is known as learned behaviour,” says Amogh Deshmukh, MD of Development Dimensions International, adding that for example, “while the most common belief is that one needs extroverts in sales, we have evidence that introverts also make very good sales people, and this happens as people learn and adapt to situations.”

THE RIGHT CANDIDATE

• One’s personality complements these skills and therefore, is an equally essential determinant of the selection process
   
• Personality tests rely on assessments to identify the strengths and weaknesses in prospective employees and map job roles with the relevant strengths