The Personality Traits That Will Get You Hired

By Katharine Paljug, Business News Daily Contributing WriterFebruary 9,

2018 10:15 am EST
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Credit: Shutterstock_baranq

When you're applying for a job, professional success and industry experience
are only part of what your interviewer wants to see. Harder to show, but many
times more crucial for actually landing the job, are the personality traits that
make you the right fit for the company.

"Employers want to know that you are qualified for a position, but they also
want to see that you will fit in with the company culture. The only way to assess
this is to get a sense of your personality," said Susan Peppercorn, CEO
of Positive Workplace Partners and author of "Ditch Your Inner Critic at Work:
Evidence-Based Strategies to Thrive in Your Career." "Knowing that someone
has the experience and skills to be successful in a job is paramount, but when
two candidates have similar capabilities, often the soft skills are why one person
gets hired over another."
A 2014 study by the career resource and job-listing site CareerBuilder found
that many employers prioritize the same soft skills in employees, looking for
candidates who are dependable, positive, flexible and effective communicators
who work well under pressure, among other personality traits.
"When companies are assessing job candidates, they're looking for ... the right
personality," said Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder’s chief human resources
officer. "It's important to highlight soft skills that can give employers an idea of
how quickly you can adapt and solve problems, whether you can be relied on to
follow through, and how effectively you can lead and motivate others."

Hiring experts and business leaders weighed in on the personality traits that can
make the difference between a strong candidate and a new employee.

1. A multitasker

Employees are rarely hired to perform a single function. Especially in a small

business setting, companies need people who are willing to come out of their
roles and do whatever is necessary, said Ron Selewach, founder and CEO of
talent acquisition software company Human Resource Management Center Inc.

"A small business needs people who can not only tolerate chaos, but thrive in
it," he said.

2. A strategist

Career psychologist Eileen Sharaga said that every business needs a strategic
thinker. Hiring managers want someone who can identify long-term goals. It’s
critical to demonstrate that you have not only a vision for the future, but also a
plan to get there, she said.
3. A decider

People who can use their own judgment and take decisive action are valuable to
any company, Selewach said. Business leaders can't be involved in every minor
decision, so they look for a candidate who is not afraid to pull the trigger. The
ability to act and take responsibility for the outcome is essential for anyone
hoping to move into a management or leadership position.

4. A cautious person

Beth Gilfeather, CEO and founder of Sevenstep Recruiting, noted that a more
cautious employee acts as a counterbalance to risk-takers. "They are risk-averse,
but sometimes, you need people to provide stability and fairness, and keep your
business from taking on too much," she said.
5. An independent thinker
Some employees go along with everything the boss says, without question.
These people may be good for an ego boost, but ultimately, leaders need team
members who will challenge the status quo if it's better for the business.

"I want people who will … not be afraid to stand up for what they think is the
right thing for the company," said Meg Sheetz, former president and COO of
weight loss program Medifast. "I also look for people who understand that they
will not necessarily agree with every decision that the company may make, but
... they have to find a way to support their teams in a unified approach."
6. A team player

Most jobs require some kind of collaboration, whether with a team of other
employees, a group of clients or occasional outside contractors. The ability to
work pleasantly and effectively with others is a key part of nearly any job.

"Employers value candidates who are flexible enough to get along well with a
variety of personalities and work styles," said Peppercorn. "Examples of
accomplishments working on a team should be part of every job-hunter's
interview repertoire."

7. A cultural fit

Individual employers may value different traits, but they all look for the elusive
cultural fit. Every company's culture is slightly different, and each is founded on
different core values. What matters most to employers is that the person they
hire embodies those values in their everyday lives.

"Our culture is founded upon a work-hard, play-hard, humble, self-reflective

and collaborative environment," said Max Yoder, CEO of online training
software company Lessonly. "Different roles obviously call for different
specifics, but all of us share those core motivations."
How to highlight your personality

Personality traits are difficult to demonstrate on a resume, so it's essential to

highlight them during the interview. Sheetz noted that strategic storytelling can
get your personality across to a hiring manager.

"Sharing stories that demonstrate how you performed during an experience is

extremely important to help get across your personality traits," she said.
"[Discuss] how you handled yourself in a crisis, or how you showed up as a
leader during a positive or negative time."
Haefner agreed, adding that simply stating you're a team player, for instance,
isn't enough for most hiring managers. Instead, provide a concrete instance of
when you worked on a team to accomplish a goal, she said.

Yoder said the best way to express your personality is to simply be yourself. "If
you're a great fit, it will be apparent. If you're not, it will also be apparent. The
most important thing to remember when walking into an interview is that it is
completely two-sided – you're interviewing us as much as we are interviewing
you."

Additional reporting by Chad Brooks, Nicole Fallon and Kim Ann

Zimmermann. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of
this article.

Reflecting about your experience

Internship central > Reflecting about your experience

Reflections and learning from an internship experience

In experiential learning and internships, the real learning comes after the work
term when you have an opportunity to think about what you saw and
experienced. Reflecting back about the experience is a key to learning and it is
definitely not a new idea. In fact, a famous lesson from Confucius around 450
B.C. illuminates the importance of active engagement and real time experiences
in learning:

“TELL ME, AND I WILL FORGET.

SHOW ME, AND I MAY REMEMBER.
INVOLVE ME, AND I WILL UNDERSTAND.”

It is through reflecting about the actions at work and the concrete experiences
that will lead you to recognizing that the experience has forged a new way of
thinking about the classroom theory. An abstract concept worked through in a
real situation, as an immediate need, will change the participants.

Below is a diagram of how one contemporary experiential learning theorist,

David Kolb, explains how interns learn from experience. Kolb's experiential
learning style theory is typically represented by a four stage learning cycle in
which the learner 'touches all the bases':
[Source: Simply Psychology.org]

1. Concrete Experience
A new experience or situation, or a reinterpretation of existing
experience,
is encountered.
2. Reflective Observation of the new experience. Of particular importance
are any inconsistencies between experience and understanding.
3. Abstract Conceptualization
Reflection gives rise to a new idea, or to a modification of an existing
abstract concept.
4. Active Experimentation
The learner applies new ideas to the world around them to see what
results.
So how should you tackle the question ‘Give me an example of a time when
you used your initiative’?
‘Takings at the pizza parlour where I worked part-time as a waitress during my
studies were down, so I chatted informally to fellow students who were
potential customers to get some ideas for things we could do to attract more
business. I approached my boss with a couple of ideas and she agreed to invest
in flyers and advertisements in the student paper. We also introduced a
suggestions box for new toppings and created a new pizza every week. Within a
month profits were up by 10%.’

This answer highlights the candidate’s effectiveness, interpersonal skills,

powers of persuasion and commercial awareness, as well as the ability to take a
creative approach to problem solving.

Classic Interview Questions and Answers

Are you proactive?

Alternative and related questions:

How good are you at taking the initiative?

The meaning behind the question:

Being proactive means making an effort to anticipate a situation and acting in

advance either to prepare for it or to prevent it. It’s not exactly the same as
taking the initiative but the two are certainly closely related.

In asking you this question the interviewer wants to establish what your
definition of proactive is and whether or not you are indeed proactive yourself –
because it is a highly desirable characteristic.

Your answer:

This is a prime example of a question requiring you to deliver a specific

example – whether or not the interviewer actually asks you for one. If you fail
to illustrate your answer with an example then it’s going to be fairly
meaningless. Anyone can claim to be proactive but can you actually prove it?

Choose your example carefully in advance, describe the circumstances to the

interviewer and, most importantly, explain what the benefits of your actions
were.

Example:
Yes, I would consider myself to be proactive. I believe it’s very important to be
as proactive as possible. As the saying goes, a stitch in time saves nine! When
my team is working on a project I always do my best to identify possible
problems in advance and to make sure that we address them. Recently, a major
project of ours was severely affected by a key member of staff leaving the
company overnight (for personal reasons). I anticipated that, as a result of this,
we wouldn’t be able to deliver the solution to the client on time. I took the
decision to contact the client, explain the situation, apologise for the delay but
make the point that the quality of the finished solution was of greater
importance than delivering it on schedule. The client appreciated my honesty,
was very understanding and was pleased to hear that we’d never compromise
on quality just to be seen to meet a deadline

5 Keys For Developing Talent In Your

Organization
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Drew Hansen , CONTRIBUTORI write about career and talent development in the new
economy Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Ten years after publishing its research on the War for Talent, McKinsey produced
follow-on work reemphasizing the need to make talent a strategic priority.
Despite launching expensive programs to attract and retain talented employees,
many senior executives remain frustrated with the results and admit their own
failure to pay close enough attention to these issues. The following statement
captures the underpinning of any effective talent strategy:

What's needed is a deep-rooted conviction, among business unit heads and line
leaders, that people really matter -- that leaders must develop the capabilities of
employees, nurture their careers, and manage the performance of individuals
and teams.

Simply put, leaders are responsible for developing the talentin their
organizations. Yet, while many acknowledge its importance, few deliver the
coaching and training at scale to develop their people.

Recently, PDI Ninth House published its research on the ability of senior-level
leaders to develop their employees. The study found that as leaders move up the
organization, their ability to develop others decreased -- even though they
readily recognize its necessity at every level. In fact, the responsibility for
coaching and developing talent persists while the expectations and context for
leaders change. The research sheds light on a glaring gap in what everyone
agrees is one of the most important competencies of leaders: their ability to build
talent.

Cori Hill is the Director of High-Potential Leadership Development at PDI Ninth

House and co-author of Developing Leaders and Organizations Through Action
Learning. I spoke to her about this research and learned that this disconnect is
caused by a set of interrelated issues, including but not limited to:

1. Time. It's scarce, and urgent tasks have a tendency to consume it.
Leaders who aren't disciplined in their priorities will be subject to
daily crises that interfere with activities that are part of a long-term
investment in people.

2. Focus on visible skills. As leaders rise to more senior positions, it's

natural to feel like they need to demonstrate strategic thinking,
strong business acumen, and effective P&L management --
noticeable skills that catch people's attention. Building talent, on
the other hand, is less obvious and has a long-term payoff.

3. Lack of development culture. One of the most interesting findings

in the research is that even lower-level leaders who made talent
development a priority start to slip when they enter the senior
ranks. One-on-one coaching can be intrinsically fulfilling and, for
that reason alone, leaders are more likely to set aside time for it. But
senior executives make the biggest impact when they distinguish
between individual coaching and organizational coaching. It's the
latter that lacks most. Call it the culture, or environment, of
development that's missing.

Diligent leaders can avoid these traps. Brian Kibby, the President of McGraw-Hill
Higher Education, wakes up early to complete his personal tasks before
dedicating the work day to focusing on his people, even scheduling 15 minute
blocks to have conversations with everyone in his organization. Nevertheless, it's
very difficult for senior executives to spend personal time with every single
employee and provide the hands-on coaching and training that is the hallmark of
a great leader.

Cori Hill sees invulnerability to insecurity among leaders as a major stumbling

block for organizations. The way Hill puts it, "Power messes up our ability to
learn." Leaders set the example of learning, which sometimes requires the
admission, "I don't know."
She has these suggestions for senior leaders who want to create a culture of
talent development:

1. Act as a role model. Be transparent about your own need to learn

and develop and share how you're able to do it. Embrace
vulnerability: leaders are never more powerful than when they are
shown to be learning.

2. Reinforce the value of learning. Go beyond the baseline

conversation about goals. Ask about what they want to accomplish
and what they feel their gaps are. When someone completes an
assignment, celebrate both the outcome and the learning,
especially if the assignment wasn't completed as smoothly as
everyone would've liked.

3. Build sustainable processes to support development. Managers

should be expected to coach and develop their people. At a
minimum, everyone knows what areas they need to improve, and
for those with particularly high potential, career tracks are
developed that give them a sense of where they can go inside the
organization.

4. Reinforce shared values. Employees should be able to link their

everyday tasks and responsibilities to the values in the organization.
People need to understand why what they do is important.

5. Leverage problems as opportunities for real world learning and

development. What's an acceptable failure needs to be clarified and
that way, by incorporating stretch assignments, employees can seek
out challenges where they can develop without feeling like mistakes
will set them back in their career or jeopardize their job. Learning
organizations see problems as opportunities.

Personally, I'd like to solidify a culture of development at Forbes. I'm a big

believer in giving as much context as possible, and when I meet with members of
my team each month, one of my favorite questions to ask is, "what have you
learned recently?" When an entire organization is stacked -- from top to bottom -
- in "step up" roles, everyone is learning and there's the potential for high
performance.

I do wonder how leaders at every level, based on their educational background,

perform on this dimension. For example, are leaders with MBAs more or less
prone to coach and develop talent in their organizations? Inquiring minds want to
know.

Arguments against Transformational

Leadership Theory:
Study results shows that Transformational Leadership have its positive effect on organizations,
improve its work productivity, performance and as well as the creativities, according to Bass and
Avolio (1994), it can be found in every aspect of an enterprise, because sometimes
transformational leaders are the type of leaders needed for an company to survive, according to
Burn (1978):" recognizes and exploits an existing need or demand of a potential follower… looks
for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of
the follower". A transformational leader in an organization often break through its frame of
organization culture and thrive, which made transformational leadership one of the most renewed
and popular leadership theory in modern days, nevertheless, its resplendency is not without
oppugns.
There are many criticisms against the theory of transformational leadership, one of the criticism
is transformational theory is very difficult to be trained or taught, because it's components are too
comprehensive; on the other hands, one of the argument against transformational leadership is
that followers might be manipulated by leaders and there are chances that what they gain is so
little compare to what they lost. Among them all, one of the important key criticisms against
transformational theory is accusing it to be only for the selected individuals, which may lead to
abusing of power. As Colonel Mark .A Homig (2001) have stated that:" Transformational
leadership is a double edged sword". Which means that, when a transformational leader over
done his part in terms of leadership, his/her innate defect in personality or even later life
experience can turn him/her into another type transformational leadership, the one on the
opposite side-Pseudo transformation leadership. According to Mark. A. Homig: "... has a
potential immoral and unethical dimension that could be exploited by an unscrupulous leader
inflicted on naive and unsuspecting followers." For example, Adolf Hitler was elected as the
leader of Germany, he came into power during Germany's economic inflation and depression in
1920s, he did pull Germany out of its economic depression, however, after first couple of years
"honeymoon" between him and the country, his follower later become so obsessed with him and
followed him blindly into his conquest for his so called "Lebensraum" for Germany, which brought
one of the worst disaster to Europe. Other example is Shoko Asahara, founder and leader of
Aum Shinrikyo, also known as Aleph, a Japanese cult that is responsible for the Sarin gas attack
on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
The second key argument against transformational leadership is the un-clarity of its definition
and components, since the definitions of the four components (Inspirational, Intellectual,
Idealized, and Individualized) associated with transformational leadership are overlapping each
other. According to Brayman (1992), the transformational leadership looks more suited to be a
set of personality characteristics rather than special requirements.
There are other various arguments against transformational leadership as well, like the ones
associated with ethics, according to Avolio and Howell (1992), qualities that makes a great leader
can lead to unethical act, as the first key point in this section stated, such leader can make
his/her follower to make unethical decisions and even commit crimes as well, according to
Yukl.G. (1998). One example for this case is Hitler. Within this essay, the focus will be on the
above arguments, in the following section, and in-depth analysis will be done.

Supports for the Transformational

Leadership theory:
Two of the key arguments against transformational leadership theory primarily focus on the un-
clarity of its concepts, and accusing it to be misleading. However, if we take a closer look at the
details and examine the core components of the transformational leadership theory, one can
easily notices the arguments against transformational leadership is losing its roots. Based on
Benard. M, Bass (2006)'s book on 'Transformational leadership', the qualification of
transformational leaders are those who has great personality qualities and the ability to influence
others in exchange for their loyalty, it focuses on the processes between the leader and
followers. Therefore, those who uses negative examples of transformational leadership such as
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini to fault the transformational leadership theory's core concept is
false, because idea or the overall construction of the theory of the transformational leadership is
solid, and does not varies when people interpolate it differently.
Arguments such as the requirements for transformational leadership are sets of personality traits,
and it cannot be taught or learn, Oscar Arias have stated: "More than knowledge, leaders need
character. Values and ethics are vitally important. The basics of leadership can be taught. What
is desperately needed is more responsible leadership -- a new ethic to confront the challenges of
our day." Based on an interview and commentary essay done by Jonathan P. Doh (, many
educators believes that transformational leadership can be taught, in fact all types of leadership
can be taught and learned. Here are some of the quoted interviews from that report:
Jay Conger (Professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School and Senior
Research Scientist, Center for Organizations at the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles) have :"Yes, most definitely. Here work experiences, bosses, special projects, and role
models, education all play a role in leadership development. Using an analogy with sports, not
everyone can become an outstanding player despite coaching, yet most will benefit and improve
their 'game'. A few will go on to become stars or outstanding leaders given coaching, extensive
experiences, and personal drive."
Also from Kim S. Cameron (Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource
Management at the University of Michigan Business School.) said that: "Some people have an
inclination to learn some competencies faster or better than others, of course, and some people
reflect more charismatic or likable characteristics than others. But many great leaders are not
those that appear on the covers of Time and Fortune. They have learned to achieve spectacular
results in their own circumstances. Think of parents. Can people learn to become better parents,
or are we just born either competent or not? Everyone would agree that effective parenting can
be learned and improved. So can effective leadership."
Leadership can also be taught, according to Jay Conger, Kim Cameron, and Steve Stumpf (cited
in Jonathan P. Doh's interview essay), have all agreed that leadership can be taught, but only to
a certain extent. The reason behind this is the three dimensions of leadership: skills,
perspectives and dispositions. Just like in school, everything can be taught to students, but there
are always some students do better than others, in terms of adapting knowledge, and the ability
of applying the knowledge that they have learned. Skills can be taught, and perspectives can be
trained, however, dispositions such as ambitions, mental capacity, etc.….is difficult to teach.
Bottom line is, leadership can be taught and learned through education and training.
There are a lot of examples of leaders that proved valuable to a company, just to name of few in
this essay. Steve Jobs is one of the perfect example, he was fired from apple and later came
back, and turned Apple into one of the most profitable technology company in the world. Another
example is Gordon Bethune, CEO of Continental Airlines (merged with United in 2010), and he
joined Continental Airlines during its bankruptcy, during that time, company was losing $55
million dollars per month, he, however, not only eliminated the debt they had at that not, but also
increased Continental Airline's stock price from $2 a share to $50 a share.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, Transformational leadership theory have proved its value throughout the modern
days, even if there are some criticisms, it still not enough to effect the core concept of
transformational leadership theory. Counter arguments in support for the transformational
leadership theory, have proved its aptitude in work performance, quality and earn their loyalty. Key
arguments have been vindicated in this essay, even though, motive of a leader sometimes is
questionable, but this does not change the core construction of the theory; transformational
leadership theory or any leadership theory can be learned or taught, only difference is how well
one can adapt and apply the knowledge of leadership. Transformational leadership is surely one
of the most popular theory, and most likely will become the resolution for today's organization, as
today's enterprises facing many tough challenges such as creativity, sustainability, and
uniqueness.