How to Leverage Your Personality Type to Nail the Interview

March 25th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Mona Abdel-Halim is the co-founder of Resunate, the makers of the Apply widget for startups. You can start attracting top talent for free by getting an Apply widget for your company at Resunate.com/employers. You can also connect with Mona and Resunate on Facebook and Twitter.

With the competition in today’s job market, you’re considered lucky if you are offered an interview.

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But once you’ve made it to the interview round, there’s more to consider than just dressing the part and ensuring you remember to bring extra copies of your resume. To really nail the interview — and ultimately, get the job — you need to demonstrate to the employer why you’re the best person for the job. This can be difficult for many job seekers to do.

One way to showcase your talents is through knowing and understanding your personality type. This knowledge enables you to position your natural personality preferences as job strengths and indicators of success.

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You may have taken personality assessments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument before. This is a psychometric tool taken by more than 2 million people annually that sorts your natural preferences, referred by four abbreviated letters. They include:

Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I)
Sensing (S) or Intuition (N)
Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

There are sixteen possible Myers-Briggs® personality types that help to illuminate your natural preferences. Knowing your personality type can help you understand the type of workplace culture where you’d be most comfortable. This can serve as a guide for the direction you should take in your career in order to be the most successful — and satisfied — on the job.

Personality Type Your Interview Performance

Depending on your personality type and the position at hand, you can emphasize your strengths and learn how those preferences could help you at this particular organization.

For instance, if you have a preference for thinking and you’re vying for a high pressure position with a lot of decision-making, you should communicate your ability to think logically, conduct an objective analysis and consider the impacts and consequences to arrive at the best solution.

No personality type is an indicator that you won’t succeed; rather, your type indicates how naturally things come to you and how much you may be within your comfort range.

According to The Myers Briggs Foundation, “Work environments influence how comfortable you are at your job. Someone with a preference for Introversion, for example, who is required to do a lot of detail work or think through a problem, may find it disruptive to be in an environment that is too loud or where a lot of interaction is required. When you know this about yourself, you can make arrangements to do your work in a more suitable location or at a time when there is less activity and interference.”

Personality Type The Interviewer’s Perception of You

When it comes to communication with your interviewer, self-awareness is another vital aspect of a successful interview.

Let’s say your preference indicates extraversion, which means you are energized by interacting with people and develop ideas by discussing them with others. You might not have a problem talking about yourself, but you may end up saying things before you’ve had a chance to think them through. Once you know and understand your personality type, you can pay attention to your potential blind spots (such as responding quickly, sometimes without thinking) during the interview and ensure that you’re presenting your best, most professional self. This can also help with the elusive “likeability” factor that many hiring managers and recruiters ultimately look for in a job candidate.

Haven’t discovered your personality type yet? While you may think you know your preferences, taking a personality assessment can help you become more aware of how you prefer to work and how you’ll get along with others, which is not only valuable during a job interview but also for your career in general.

Employers will be impressed if you know and understand your personality type. It indicates to them that you are aware of yourself and, thus, more easily retained at the job. It also provides much-needed insight on yourself to highlight your strengths and explain why you’re the best person for the job. Not only is it a great way to position yourself for career advancement, but it can help you discover how to work better with co-workers and management, knowing their preferences and how they align with yours. This can ensure that if you land the job you don’t become one of the many in the workforce gainfully employed but dissatisfied with their job.

Do you know your personality type? How has it played a role in your career or job search?

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