Choose Wisely: Employer Culture and Your Personality

As an undergraduate or early career professional, you have learned about your own personality. One aspect of personality we will focus on here are the preferences for work and interaction which matter to you. It is wise to know as much as possible about the culture of an employer you consider before committing to an offer of employment. We can even extend this to internships. Internships can lead to full time employment. Would we want to spend one or more summers pursuing an employer, industry, or job type which did not fit one's personality? Lack of fit leads to struggle every day at work. This is not a formula for success or even work satisfaction.

I once worked with a man who was in his early forties. His name was Len. He did his job well as accountant for a large firm. And he noticed this job did not satisfy him. After all members in a meeting filled out a questionnaire designed to reveal personality fit to work type, he declared to the group, "I found my problem. The career I chose does not fit my personality." He was serious, and he was correct.

Another person in the meeting, Craig, was trying to organize a new, small business unit. The leader of this initiative would need to control costs while being creative and hard-working. Craig asked me if I felt he should "take a chance" and select Len. I thought Craig had a good idea, and Len could succeed. Len was chosen. Len became a refreshed individual. He thrived both with the human interaction and with the creativity required. The business unit succeeded, and did so much faster than Craig and I estimated it would.

Employers have cultures. Cultures guide how employees interact with customers, suppliers, competitors, and each other. Some aspects of culture may be stated. Values like integrity/honesty are an example. Many cultural aspects are unstated expectations of how employees should behave. The behavioral expectations run deeper than dress code. Yet dress code is an element of culture. The IBM culture of "only white shirts" for men from decades ago is an example.

And your personality and preferences, shaped both by your genetics and your experiences, are equally important in choosing an employer. Yes, even undergraduates should see professional employment as a choice they make. Decades ago a very good and durable book was published called, "Go Hire Yourself An Employer", by Richard K. Irish. His approach is you are choosing your employer as much as your employer is selecting you. You are NOT simply a supplicant for a job.

This book is worth buying (used) and reading. Its most powerful aspect is called "interviewing for information", in which you never ask for a job. This is the best tool I know for finding out what a prospective employer or even industry is like culturally.

The focus for this article is finding an employer with a culture which will match your personality, allowing you to deepen your strengths. To do so, let's explore seven behaviors which you may or may not prefer be present in your employer's culture. Please note these are not mutually exclusive employer expectations. Nor is the list exhaustive. For example, an employer may want new employees who are strongly inter-personally competitive, yet expect the same new employees to work well in teams. Let's begin.

Competition--There are companies who want to see interpersonal competitiveness among their employees. These companies may create competitive cultures by ranking sales performance, for example. Being a stock broker in an office of a dozen or more brokers may serve as an example. No one wants to be on the bottom of the production list. Note the work condition is each broker's work is relatively independent of the work of brokers others. Seeking and serving clients can be quite independent work.

One industry which had this tendency in the last decade is some types of financial services. Bond, stock, and foreign currency traders were culturally focused on financial performance. This led to higher employee turnover in more than a few cases. Better selection of new hires who'd thrive in such an environment has been the more recent trend.

Are you a competitive person? Basketball super-star Michael Jordan was intensely competitive and said so aloud. Yet Phil Jackson, his coach with the Chicago Bulls, was able to get Michael to work cooperatively with Bulls teammates and very competitively against the opponent team. Michael's personality matched the sophisticated culture created with the Bulls, leading to five amazing championship wins.

Teamwork--Just like competitive sports, not all aspects of sales are inter-personally competitive. Inside sales is often organized in teams. Here team members literally teach each other what works under the guidance of developmental leaders.

Many other jobs, especially today, require team collaboration. Consulting is a huge segment of professional employment where teamwork is the cultural norm. From health care to education, to business leadership, the ability to work in a team environment with good collaboration skills is essential. Problem solving engineers, scientists, IT professionals, and those entrepreneurs who start new organizations will all need this teamwork spirit. They will need to hire people who collaborate well.

In a prior article, I recommended you watch or watch again the movie "The Intern", starring Anne Hathaway and Robert DeNiro. Anne's character is the founder of a fast growing startup. What lessons does she learn from the retirement age intern whose career ended a bit early because he published telephone directories, a business the internet disrupted? Are there cultural lessons here? Lessons about judging too early? What did Anne's character REALLY need to do to solve the business crisis?

What is your personal evidence you may do well in a collaborative environment? Student activities such as world famous Penn State THON can test your ability to collaborate. Likewise other student and employment settings? Have you worked in food service? What was your teamwork collaboration experience there? In another industry, Southwest Airlines has cabin attendants lead group interviews of applicants for cabin attendant positions. What is being sought? A collaborative spirit which leads to successful teamwork outcomes. You'll notice cabin attendants have no supervisor present. Teamwork is a spirit thing. Do you have it? Do you prefer task focused work which is best done by an individual contributor?

Sincerity--This personality preference is less discussed than many in workplace hiring. Yet it will serve you well if you realize the degree to which you expect sincere interactions with colleagues, clients, and suppliers. Careers which require controlling the behaviors of others such as law enforcement, legal work, and tax audit may have you dealing with people who, when being audited, for example, will lie about facts. A person requiring high sincerity is likely to experience more stress in these situations than someone who simply expects untruthful behavior every day.

Sincere environments may be more likely to occur in careers like education, health care, and not for profit work. What are your expectations for sincere interactions? My expectations for sincerity in the workplace are on the high side. From experience I know cultures with low sincerity levels do not suit me. A leadership decision which remains valid for only a few minutes is one example of lack of sincerity in my view.

I have a personal rule about humor and sincerity. Humor must never come at the emotional expense of another person. No jokes about ethnic background. No jokes about things a person cannot change, such as baldness. No jokes which embarrass. Humor must be WITH the person if directed to someone. Humor must not diminish another person. "We only tease people we like" is an operating principle. Humor must be sincere. And sincerity must be at its highest level with subordinates.

Caring/Giving--Some careers have more of this dimension. Are caring and giving important in your personality? Education, health care, customer service, and especially not-for-profit work are good choices if this personality dimension is strong for you. Motivation by mission/purpose, such as education for the under-served, animal protection, and serving others in general can be the basis for a fulfilling career if this personality dimension is important to you. Military service fits here as well. Service to others is the reason.

Caring/giving has a "getting" psychological component. What does the giver get? Purpose, feedback, satisfaction of having impact. Giving and getting are not mutually exclusive.

Getting--Some personalities see their work very strongly as "what do I get". Financial rewards matter to these people. The personality which focuses on "what do I get" needs a clear career path and clear standards for earning the rewards. Airline pilots are an example where the salaries can be key to satisfaction. So are pilot ratings earned important in this getting environment. There can be giving of great service while getting, so these two personality dimensions are not mutually exclusive, either.

Other forms of getting include promotions, rewards/recognition from peers or bosses (or both).

In my experience with hundreds and hundreds of professionals, getting often means more early in career. Gaining financially and gaining in confidence feel like getting, and they are. One piece of getting which will transform a career into a successful career is discovery of the purpose for one's working life. I was in my thirties when this purpose clarified for me. It shifted my focus from "primarily getting" to "primarily giving", which better fit my personality.

Three times in my career I've been asked to advise a member of a client's family where the exchange with the family member did not go well. In one instance the family member could only be described as mean. Some would say emotionally selfish. If he becomes your boss, you have only one choice. Leave. Taylor Swift got it right. "...and all you'll ever be is mean".

In a second case the person was so full of pre-judgment and opinion masquerading as fact (in his mind only), he will never get what his internal fiction feels he "deserves". Hint: Be cautious of people who willingly tell you, without being asked, what they or even you "deserve".

The third person was five years into a career as a stock broker. He had no patience for a conversation about how to best listen for what customers needed so he could serve them. He had NEVER had a single client recommend him (the broker) to someone else. He had high client turnover. He was wasting energy having to replace defecting clients. Career failure was the outcome. Getting was blocking his ability to determine what to give in order to get.

Task Focus--Are you a person who plans? Are you a person who plans in detail before acting? Are you a person who prefers to spend work time on tasks rather than in meetings and team interaction. Then this personality dimension will need to dominate your work. Accounting/finance is a good choice here. So is engineering design. Legal work, regulation, even surgery fit well here. Likewise project management, although project management will require a behavioral component of human interaction as well.

Behavioral Focus--If you feel most satisfied at the end of a good work day because you helped to advance the team effort and did so through relationships you can rely on again, one of your personality strengths is behavioral focus. You likely "read" situations and people well. Seek career opportunities which maximize your need to apply this skill. Consultants do well here. Educators listen for the unspoken "missing" in what the learner DOES know. Industrial engineers and IT professionals can focus on how people USE what they create.

How do we best determine a work setting our personality prefers? Experience is the best way I know. Reflect on your experience. Think back through your work and school activities so far. Identify first situations which may feel less than successful. Ever been fired? I have. It teaches us a lot about what not to do , what to do, and the culture in which we prefer to work. Being fired teaches us when to put disappointments behind us. This is a an extremely important moment of emotional growth, more important than the emotions of being fired and figuring out what we contributed to the situation.

When something went especially well, what was especially satisfying for you in this? This will also guide your discovery of what matters to you personally. Seek more of this in your work.

In addition to reflection, ask others what they see as your strengths. Past bosses can be helpful here. So can family members. Peers are often your strongest sources here.

Don't bother with the "weakness" question. This one tends to attract too much opinion from someone who has a different personality. We waste the most energy trying to cure weaknesses, whether others assign these to us or we assign these to ourselves. Yes, we do need to be aware of our weaknesses. But solicitation seems to elevate their importance, so don't solicit. You'll get enough of "weakness" talk for free! We get lots of "weakness" inputs from society at large and from inside our heads. Seek not to understand weaknesses. Understanding weaknesses is a waste of time and effort. Seek only to know they're there, requiring us to have team members we trust who do these things better than we do.

Do you feel prepared to match your personality to the culture of an employer? Above we have explored some ways to be better prepared. Experience with the details of both our own personalities in a given situation and experience with cultural assumptions will be our most thoughtful and best next steps.

Note many early career professionals leave an early employer because they discover this lack of fit. My advice is, even if you discover this lack of fit early, if no laws are being broken, stay until your first service anniversary before changing employers. This will deepen your decision-making about your future career path. You might even avoid Len's experience of 20 years in a career path which did not fit his personality.

Sincere best wishes,

Ken Graham, Strategy, Leadership, and Change Consulting, Rowhill Consulting Group, three time winner of Penn State degrees.