<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a widely discussed topic – is it better hiring for personality or skill?<\/p>\n
The overwhelming response – personality is more important. This is at least the result from Hyper Island\u2019s “Tomorrow\u2019s Most Wanted survey” of 500 professionals. 78% answered that personality is the most desirable quality in an employee, with only 39% answering skills as being the most important. But the question asked in this survey didn\u2019t get the point.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Traditionally, scholars of personnel psychology agree that performance is a function of motivation, knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics like personality (KSAOs), as well as situational constraints. Motivation asks the question, if people want to do something. KSAOs if people can do it. If people want and can do something, they need a chance to do so (that\u2019s the situation). The main difference between knowledge, skills on the one side and abilities and personality on the other side is that former can be learned. In contrast, abilities and personality traits are very stable over time.<\/p>\n
On LinkedIn, there are people, such as Richard Branson, stating that most skills can be learned<\/a> and most people are able to learn the core fundamentals of a new position within the first three months in the position. This might be true for certain types of jobs such as those in retail and customer service, but for engineering positions or other R&D positions that require years of tertiary education, this isn\u2019t the case. The main point is that abilities, skills and experience predict performance on tasks, but personality predicts contextual performance<\/a> – in other words: how someone performs in a team, and you need people that fit into your team.<\/p>\n In general, there is no good or bad personality. For selection purposes, we should concentrate on competency dimensions (that rely partially on personality traits) that fit the requirements of a specific position. The same personality traits may or may not predict success for different professions. One example that workforce universe<\/a> found a recent study: for a leadership or management position, consciousness is related to being efficient in the military. In business, there was no effect at all. Would it make sense if accountants needed to have the same traits as art directors for a media agency?<\/p>\n So first, it is essential to have a clear competence profile or model. Next, it may be wise to screen for the \u201csofter\u201d parts like the \u201charder\u201d parts. Why wait until the face-to-face interview to assess all candidates\u2019 competencies? Too often, preselection is exclusively done by skills and those that may be the perfect fit for the job are falsely eliminated too early. Simply switching your preselection method to video interviewing<\/a> instead can help reduce this. Using this method, you are able to screen first your candidates by competencies that actually are needed for a position. Another added bonus is that you save time and money, as you can screen more candidates faster, and only invite those that are suitable to a personal interview.<\/p>\n To find out more about how you can use video interviewing in your recruiting, check out our information about video recruiting<\/a> or book yourself a non-binding consultation call with our experts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been a widely discussed topic – is it better hiring for personality or skill? The overwhelming response – personality is more important. This is at least the result from Hyper Island\u2019s “Tomorrow\u2019s Most Wanted survey” of 500 professionals. 78% answered that personality is the most desirable quality in an employee, with only 39% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,30],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat does it mean to have a \u201cgood\u201d personality anyway?<\/h5>\n
Assess the fit already in pre-screening<\/h5>\n