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When you’re working hard to expand your business, you want to build an A-Team that will practice your company’s mission and values and make customers happy. That’s not asking for too much, is it? For some personality types, it’s asking for way too much.
It’s during the interview process that we needle out the undesirables, as it were, but this can be tricky. In search of a job and in need of money, people will work tirelessly to portray themselves in a flattering light. In some instances, it works. Before you know it, you’ve hired someone unfeeling, unkind and uncouth. This poor hire can have a severe negative impact on the rest of the team, it could even lead to some of your most valuable employees giving notice. Don’t let a smooth talker fool you into offering them a position.
Here are four personality types to watch for in interviews and how to ferret them out of the hiring pool:
Toxic Personalities to Avoid
According to Forbes Magazine, businesses that made company culture a priority experienced a job turnover rate of just 13 percent. Businesses that placed emphasis elsewhere experienced a 48 percent job turnover rate—that’s a significant percentage increase. Ask yourself this: Which statistic do I want my business to fall under? Probably not the 48 percent. Want to lead a successful business? Don’t hire these four personality types:
The Over-Confident Candidate: You are going to want a staff that is confident in their abilities and performs well, but you’re also going to want a staff that practices humility. An over-confident interviewee will do their best to talk up their skills and ask you hard-pressed questions to show interest in the job. In part, this is all for show. An over-confident candidate suffers from one of two things: low self-esteem or an entitled mentality. A candidate who suffers low self-esteem will need constant reassurance and pep talks, while a candidate with an entitled mentality will drain the patience and optimism of your team.
The Negative Candidate: To run an effective business campaign, your team needs to be optimistic about sales, agendas and goals. If you have an employee who consistently complains about the work, shows little to no interest in diversifying their role and doesn’t want to put in the extra effort to make a change, they will not add to company culture or morale. To get an idea of whether or not this candidate will be a negative presence in the workplace, ask them about a time they had to work on a project with another team member. If they take all the credit for themselves and demean their partner and the company they worked for, chances are they’ll do that to you too.
The Apathetic Candidate: The negative candidate leads us right into the attributes of the apathetic candidate. This personality type is only interested in getting their payday and does little to nothing to improve work relations or advance company holdings. They won’t ever work extra hours and they will make up excuses when asked to perform a duty outside of their typical day-to-day role. In the interview, ask candidates how they changed or reshaped their current position. If the candidate is not able to answer this question successfully, they most likely stagnated in their last position. Beyond this, if you find their answer to be unsatisfactory, it may also be worth making use of a platform like HiPeople to automatically recheck their references. By doing this, you can then cross-reference this information with their interview answers and determine whether their previous employer had any other similar issues with the candidate’s apathy.
The “Blameless” Candidate: This personality type will not under any circumstances own up to a mistake they have made or clients they have upset. They perform tasks half-heartedly, and can quickly get the business into trouble. This is why the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) suggests that business owners invest in commercial insurance—if an employee should make a hazardous mistake that could result in your business being held up in a lawsuit, you’ll be protected. You can spot the “Blameless” personality by asking how they handle conflict and how they handled a particular conflict at their previous job.
It would certainly be nice if everyone worked hard and got along, but that’s just not the way the world works. Despite this, you can still help save your company culture by hiring people who are optimistic, professional and kind.