Does Recruiter Personality matter? You’ll be surprised.
Absolutely…most of our likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, compatibilities, etc are heavily influenced by our personality. While personality determination has never been mainstream science, there has been a lot of research dating back to 18th and 19th century on how personality sub-consciously determines what we do, how we do it and why we do it.
So if one were to map personality traits of a Recruiter, one would be able to see why they are good at closing certain type of positions very quickly and why they are not good or struggle with some other type of positions.
The answer is deep-rooted in their own personalities. As per Dr.Carl Jung’s personality traits, there are 16 different indicators or flavors of personality that can provide an insight into the different preferences and motivations that guide a person’s work style. These personality types are based on 4 different components that together determine a type. For example how a person derives energy? how they prefer to gather information? how they prefer to make decisions? and how they perceive things?
From a Recruiter’s perspective, let me give you an example. Let’s take the example of an ISTJ (Introvert, Sensing, Thinker, and Judging) personality. ISTJ’s are facts and data-driven and are not too comfortable with fuzzy/abstract or big-picture communications. By personality, they are very loyal, hard-workers and highly value tradition. They take their responsibilities very seriously. While they execute a given task impeccably, they don’t tend to come up with creative ideas proactively.
Such a personality will largely be good at managing positions like Programmers, Finance staff, Auditors, Data Analysts, etc. But they might struggle with positions like Sales Managers, UX & UI Designers, Marketing heads, Event Managers, Project Managers, etc. The reason for the above is that ISTJ’s will ask questions based on their own natural preferences and may not be able to appreciate if answers to their questions are not in line with their preferences or natural instincts.
Imagine if you knew the personality trait of every Recruiter in your company, you would then be able to truly optimize the output by doing the right kind of allocation. Or at least you will ensure the right kind of additional training is provided to them to achieve the stated business goals.
