October 27, 2016
In
PC Pointer
By
Cindy Fassler
Are you making this big hiring mistake?
It’s no surprise that companies with higher levels of diversity outperform their less diverse counterparts by 35%. McKinsey found that “companies with racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above the national average.” Gender diversity also plays a role in helping to increase financial returns by 15%. While both of these statistics are highly important and are now looked at when hiring employees, there is another type of diversity that often goes overlooked. Can you guess what that is?
The answer is diversely hiring personality types; such as introverts and extroverts. Most people think of personality types when it comes to different kinds of jobs. Sales people, marketers, and recruiters tend to be extroverted while engineers, financial analysts, and IT specialists are more introverted. The reality is that many companies hire extroverts over introverts, regardless of the position. This may actually be a fatal hiring mistake.
The book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking that came out in 2012 shed light on the capabilities of introverts in the workplace. More recently, HBR released a study that found introverts and extroverts to be equally as powerful as leaders. Even more profound is the paper titled “The Downfall of Extroverts and Rise of Neurotics” which found that extroverts tend to under perform and make less of an impact on their teams in the long run, whereas introverts end up contributing more and making a more favorable impression on their teams.
How do you go about hiring a more diverse team that allows both introverts and extroverts an equal chance at getting the job? Since our initial instincts tend to lead us toward favoring extroverts, here are my top tips for hiring introverts:
READ MORE