Written by Paul Slezak, Area Manager, Aquent

A few months ago I met with a client to take a confidential brief for a senior position coming up within her team. After almost an hour together writing a detailed job description, and assessing what she regarded as the prerequisite skills and core competencies required in the role, she looked me in the eye and said something that really took me by surprise.

“Actually, Paul. More than anything, it’s crucial that you find me a Scorpio. I need a bit more bite around here”.

I thought she was joking but she was being completely serious.

She was placing more emphasis on a potential applicant’s star sign than on any proven ability to perform the requirements of a fairly senior role. In other words she felt it was more important to hire based on the right personality mix for her team dynamic than for me to objectively evaluate any potential applicants’ skills, abilities and core competencies.

Juggling many diverse personalities in the workplace can be very demanding on any Manager. And whilst most teams are made up of a combination of very different personality types – all of whom require sophisticated and delicate handling to ensure you maximise their full potential – it is a crucial part of the hiring process to ensure that you balance the right mix of skills, ability and personality.

Some personality types just don’t mix well with others in the workplace, especially when a job requires things to be done in a certain way. As a Manager you may have implemented certain reporting, client management or administrative procedures, team incentives, or even simple day-to-day internal policies. Being armed with the knowledge of what makes people behave or react the way they do in certain work situations can reduce potential conflicts and can lead to a far more harmonious team environment.

How can you accurately determine different personality types and behavioural styles during an interview? How do you then effectively manage different personalities and in turn different behavioural needs to achieve the right balance within your team? Are there any proven personality traits that are guaranteed to lead to success?

Understanding your team’s personality mix and probing a candidate for specific case studies and examples during interview is crucial. Also, be mindful of the fact that one’s success in a job (or an organisation) goes beyond simply performing well. Frequently, satisfaction with work comes not only from doing a good job, but also from being comfortable with the organisation’s core values. It is therefore essential to examine the match between a potential applicant’s personal characteristics and your company’s (or team’s) code of ethics or business standards.

Ascertaining a candidate’s skill or ability during an interview is fairly easy. For example you may be able to look at physical samples of past work (such as reports they may have produced) to guage their writing style. If you are recruiting for a sales role, you could ask a candidate to verify previous sales targets against actual results. Some skills can even be assessed using certain software packages. However to determine how compatible a potential candidate’s personality might be compared with your organisation’s (or team’s) culture, or to attempt to determine whether a potential candidate will actually get along with the other members of your team can be a lot more difficult.

Having major personality differences within teams can result in conflict. However a team full of the same personality types is also not entirely conducive to fostering a healthy, productive and results-driven working environment. As a follow-up to your interviews, administering a personality profile (or psych test) may be required as a regular part of the recruitment process to ensure that your team dynamic is not dramatically altered with the appointment of a new team member.

Managers with enough hiring experience will understand that an articulate, well-presented candidate with the right education and a strong résumé will not necessarily be successful in an organisation if their personality could cause conflict, hindering co-operation, lowering morale and zapping the productive energies from an already well functioning team.

All teams will be comprised of diverse personalities, skill sets and interests that are challenging to put together and not everyone in the team will get along. But it is important for all the members of the team to work together to achieve the same goal.

Whilst many Managers would tend to categorise different members of their teams as either being “introverts” (the more silent type) or “extraverts” (the energised movers and shakers), it has been suggested (by many leading occupational psychologists) that in the majority of workplaces there are in fact four basic personality types to be aware of.

• Choleric – those with strong personalities who get a lot accomplished but have a tendency to be bossy, aggressive, or overbearing in the workplace;
  
• Phlegmatic – those who show little or no emotion at all at work. They appear more logical than emotional and are always questioning or negotiating;
  
• Sanguine – those who always appear to be overly happy, wanting to take on many new projects but who may have difficulty finishing them; and
  
• Melancholic – those who are very detail driven and who tend to be the deep thinkers and the organisers in the workplace.

Obviously these personality types are not fixed as being either one or the other, and many individuals within a team can demonstrate a blend of more than one trait. It is therefore important when you are in a hiring position to be aware of the different workplace personality traits, since without properly understanding the personality and characteristic differences that may already exist within your team, you may inadvertently create a situation ripe for conflict. And whilst workplace conflict is both common and inevitable, unnecessary tension in the workplace can make work life unpleasant for everyone.

If during an interview, as well as assessing previous skills and capabilities you are able to guage the personality type of the candidate sitting opposite you, and you are able to get a thorough understanding of what makes them tick, you may then be able to better prevent potential future workplace conflict. However recruiting for personality mix alone may not result in the most effective hiring decision.

After all, do you really think the following position description would attract the right candidate for your team environment?

Scorpio required to add bite to a team of phlegmatic and melancholic individuals while reporting to an extravert Virgo Manager! Please apply to MysticMeg@zodiac.com.

Hiring staff to work well within any team dynamic is far too important a risk to base a decision on personality traits alone. Whilst no Manager wants to foster an environment where conflict exists, it is still important not to make a hasty selection based solely on what type of person you think they are … or what type of person they appeared to be (or convinced you that they were!) during interview.

Paul Slezak is the Sydney Area Manager for Aquent (www.aquent.com/mcs), a global firm that specialises in staffing solutions for the creative, marketing and communications industries. Through a network of nearly seventy offices in fifteen countries, Aquent services in the areas of print and Web design and production; advertising and media, marketing, public relations and business support. Paul also speaks and trains on career and recruitment issues and can be contacted on (02) 9264 1888 or e-mailed via pslezak@aquent.com