Perfect Personality Profiles (10 page)

High agreeableness

People who are high on the trait of agreeableness tend to be considerate and helpful in their behaviour. They can be good friends and are often sympathetic listeners, and they will try to help others with their problems and concerns and are concerned for the welfare of others. They prefer cooperation to competition when they are working with others and will generally like working in teams. They tend to be trusting and tolerant of others and are not easily irritated by other people’s behaviour. They may, however, find it difficult to keep a professional distance and become too involved in other people’s problems. They tend to dislike and avoid conflict and will try to smooth over disagreements between others. Their dislike of conflict can make it difficult for people with this behavioural style to deliver bad news or to challenge other people’s behaviour or opinions, and they can be too gullible and easily taken in by other people.

People with this behavioural style can be good in situations where helpfulness and sympathetic listening are required. Suitable positions include some of the caring professions as well as the service industry, such as customer care. However, highly agreeable people will struggle with roles that are competitive or that involve conflict. Roles where there is a recurring need to be assertive with others, such as dealing with difficult customers, enforcing performance and quality standards, and selling and negotiating on behalf of an organization, could be a problem, and people who are too agreeable may have difficulty with staff management roles for this reason. They may find it difficult to maintain an emotional separation from people they work with, and where this happens it can lead to burn-out in caring rules.

Agreeable people will be accommodating as job seekers. They will try hard to meet the needs of the employer, such as being available for interview when it suits the recruiting organization. Their cooperative and helpful attitude may be appreciated by an interviewer, but their dislike of conflict will tend to make them less effective when it comes to negotiating terms and conditions or salary. Where agreeableness is a positive factor for the job they are likely to come across well in interpersonal exercises such as role plays. However, they may find competing with other candidates in a group exercise more difficult.

Low agreeableness

People who are low on the trait of agreeableness are more selective in their sympathies and support for others. They may be quite competitive in their approach to many situations and generally consider their own, or their department’s or organization’s, needs before others. They will tend to invest energy in getting the best outcome from situations for themselves and those with whom they identify. They are likely to be independent thinkers and to take quite a sceptical approach to what they see and hear. They may question other people’s motives and intentions rather than taking them on trust, which means that they are unlikely to be taken in. When there is a difference of opinion they will express their own view and try to influence others to their way of thinking. They will not shirk from delivering bad news or expressing views that may be controversial.

Someone who is low on the agreeableness trait will be suited to work in a competitive environment or where straight talking is required. This could include many roles in sales and where there is the cut and thrust of business competition. They will generally be able to maintain a professional distance and not become emotionally involved in other people’s problems. They may be suited to roles where standards or policies need to be enforced, such as roles in security or managing difficult people. However, their general lack of empathy may mean that they lack insight into other people’s problems and ride roughshod over their feelings.

The competitiveness typical of low agreeableness people may stand them in good stead as job candidates. It may give them the extra drive needed to put some effort into preparation for job interviews and to present themselves effectively on the day. They need to be careful not to behave too aggressively with interviewers, but their assertiveness may help them stand out from the other candidates and negotiate a good deal if they are offered the job.

Moderate agreeableness

People who are intermediate on agreeableness will be generally sympathetic and supportive of others but will be more easily able to maintain an emotional distance from other people’s problems than those who are high on the trait. They will be willing to help others but will balance this with meeting their own personal needs. They are likely to have the flexibility to work in both cooperative and competitive modes without being extremely competitive or extremely compliant. Although they may not enjoy giving unpleasant messages, they will face up to doing it when necessary. They will express their own views in a discussion but will also listen to what others have to say and be ready to be persuaded by a stronger view.

A moderately agreeable behavioural style is suitable for many types of work because people like this will be comfortable working cooperatively or competitively. They can deal sympathetically with other people but can also maintain sufficient professional distance not to become inappropriately emotionally involved in their problems.

Others who are moderate on agreeableness may have some of the traits of agreeableness very strongly but be at the non-agreeableness end of the spectrum on others. For example, a person might be trusting of others but not sympathetic to their difficulties. Another person might be caring and cooperative in their approach but rather low on trust and be wary and suspicious of others.

In terms of suitability for different types of work, the behavioural style of this sort of person needs to be matched to the job requirements. It will depend on the exact nature of the job and the behavioural style of the individual.

Assess yourself on agreeableness

Circle your answers to the questions below. Are they mostly in the High or Low column? If it is a mixture of both you are likely to be moderately agreeable.

High emotional stability

People with high emotional stability tend to have a relaxed and laid-back approach to life. They are not easily upset by people and events and tend to be able to take life’s problems in their stride. They are likely to be quite confident and optimistic in their outlook and not anticipate problems before they have happened. They tend to be quite thick-skinned, brushing off criticism and insults from others, and they can be quite insensitive to others. They are difficult to anger and can cope well with pressure without becoming nervous or anxious. They are less likely than others to get worked up before important events. Sometimes their calm approach to things may mean that they do not become sufficiently energized to deal with a crisis or pressurized situation, and this behaviour can seem like a lack of interest or motivation.

People with this behavioural style are well suited to dealing with stressful jobs. They can keep calm in a crisis and keep functioning without panicking. This is appropriate for jobs requiring crisis management skills or working in a pressurized environment. They can cope with having to make difficult decisions and will also be able to deal with adverse criticism without becoming unduly upset or taking things personally. This is helpful for roles where people deal with complaints and problems for much of the time. However, their approach may be too relaxed for some roles because they may not take problems or issues sufficiently seriously and not invest energy in finding solutions and dealing with matters.

As job seekers their laid-back approach will mean that they do not suffer too much from nerves when attending interviews or completing tests and exercises. Their calm and together approach is likely to impress an interviewer, but their lack of nerves may mean that they fail to reach their full potential at interviews because a little bit of anxiety can be helpful in spurring performance.

Low emotional stability

People who are low on emotional stability tend to be quite anxious and tense. They find it difficult to relax and switch off, and they may find themselves continually worrying about things. They can become quite agitated before important events, and this can lead to poor performance. They can be pessimistic in outlook and anticipate difficulties and problems before they arise, which can lead them to be indecisive or overly cautious in their approach. They are sensitive to criticism and can be easily upset by the remarks of others. This may exacerbate their feelings of tension, and they may be easily irritated or angered. They can sometimes misinterpret innocuously intended remarks as critical and react accordingly.

Their nervous energy can be helpful in motivating them to get on with things and make them more vigorous in trying to achieve their goals. However, their highly anxious approach can come across as neurotic and difficult. They may be difficult to manage, not least because their oversensitivity to chance remarks makes them touchy and demanding. They may find it difficult to calm down or switch off from outside pressures when they are at work and from work pressures when they are at home.

The nervous energy of low emotional stability can be a source of motivational force to invest in tasks. Such people may be able to harness this nervous energy positively in a crisis to help increase their effort and surmount difficulties, and they sometimes have a strong need to achieve or to produce high quality results. They may work hard to deal with anticipated problems and to calm their own nerves. However, their oversensitivity makes them unsuitable for jobs where they are likely to face much criticism and do not have a supportive manager. Their general level of anxiety may make them susceptible to stress-related conditions.

The high anxiety levels of someone low on emotional stability will mean that interviews for new jobs can be very difficult. People like this may not perform at their best because of nerves, and interviewers may pick up on this. A sympathetic interviewer may do their best to calm the candidate down, but someone less sympathetic could become impatient, which could make the situation even worse. A pessimistic outlook will not help because the candidate’s expectations that something will go wrong will only increase their nervousness. There are many techniques that people who do tend to get nervous can use to calm themselves down before important events, and it is worth spending time mastering one or two of these if you do suffer from nerves. Many people, for example, find concentrating on calm, even breathing for a minute or two very effective.

Moderate emotional stability

Those who have an intermediate level of emotional stability will tend to be reasonably relaxed for the most part, although they may be susceptible to nerves before important events or when they are approaching deadlines or important milestones in projects. This nervous energy may be helpful in achieving peak performance under pressure, and they may, therefore, be able to channel their anxiety positively for the most part but also be able to relax and calm down after difficult periods. They are likely to be able to balance a realistic view of the potential success of a project with a pragmatic understanding of the possible problems and pitfalls that could arise. Although they will not be indifferent to how they are seen by others, they will not be overly sensitive to criticism and should generally be able to take it in their stride and learn from constructive comments.

Other people who are moderate in emotional stability may, on the other hand, have some of the traits associated with emotional stability and some that are more related to the more neurotic end of the trait. They may, for example, be highly anxious, find it difficult to relax, be generally irritable and easy to anger, but on the whole they may be quite thick-skinned and not worried by the criticism or comments of others.

Assess yourself on emotional stability

Circle your answers to the questions below. Are they mostly in the High or Low column? If it is a mixture of both you are likely to be moderately emotionally stable.

Competencies are similar to personality traits in some ways but rather than trying to explain how people think, feel and behave in a general way, competencies focus on a person’s ability to do a job or at least some aspect of it. Competencies are often related to one or more personality traits but may also require relevant skills, abilities and knowledge. A person with a competency has those characteristics that result in effective job performance. An example of a competency might be problem solving, which is something you might have to do in many jobs. To be good at this you need to be good at analysing situations, but you also need to be quite creative to see the problem from different perspectives and come up with some ideas for solutions. If you had learned some problem-solving techniques this might also help improve your problem-solving competency.