Temperament Insights for Effective Recruiting: What Recruiters Need to Know?

If you have ever asked yourself some of the following questions, I would like to share with you the possible answer for them.

Why do some people like to work from the office and others from home?
Why will some employees care about fuckup or corrective (often called the negative) feedback and others won’t?
Why are only some able to immediately deal with a crisis situation?
Why are only some of us able to endure hardships and discomforts and are able to function well under high levels of stress?
Why do some employees like changing work environments, and others prefer stability and predictability?
How do individual preferences for receiving recognition and rewards impact job satisfaction and performance in the workplace?

One of possible answers for these questions is - it all depends on individual differences in the area of temperament.

Temperament in the workplace dynamics

There are a few theories about temperament. Each of them touches similar features of human behavior. I would like to focus on one of the simplest in my opinion - The Regulative Theory of Temperament (RTT) made by Jan Strelau.

According to RTT, temperament is involved in regulating the relationship between humans and their outside world. That means that temperament affects how someone understands and interprets things, how they react to various situations, plan their life, what decisions they make and how a person functions at work. I believe that all of these areas in which temperament is involved are extremely interesting, but in this blogpost I would like to focus on the connection between temperament and work.

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What dimensions of temperament are distinguished in Strelau’s theory?

The responses to the initial questions in the article point to various dimensions of temperament. According to RTT, we distinguish:

Sensory sensitivity - an ability to react to sensory stimuli of low stimulative value.
Emotional reactivity - a tendency to react intensively to emotion-generating stimuli, expressed in high emotional sensitivity and in low emotional endurance. The emotional reactivity affects emotional resilience; behavior in difficult moments; effectiveness of actions taken during high stress; frequency of feeling emotional tension.
Endurance - an ability to react adequately in situations demanding long-lasting or high stimulative activity and under intensive external stimulation.
Activity - a tendency to undertake behavior of high stimulative value or to supply by means of behavior strong stimulation from the surroundings.
Briskness - a tendency to react quickly, to keep up a high tempo of performing activities, and to shift easily in response to changes in the surroundings from one behavior (reaction) to another. It influences the pace of response to stimuli; the pace at which activities are performed; the level of vigor.
Perseverance - a tendency to continue and to repeat behavior after cessation of stimuli (situations) evoking this behavior. It influences the approach to the events that affect us (low level causes a tendency to quickly forget decisions and experiences made and high level causes a tendency to analyze events and decisions already made in detail, as well as frequent return of thoughts to the past); focus on the loss (high level), or quick acceptance of the loss (low level); repetition of the same stress behavior.

We can interpret each of these components as a spectrum. They are related to each other and exert mutual influence. Each of them has an influence on our behavior.

via GIPHY

Why are they so important?

Because every role in a company is different. And we, as recruiters, should be able to find the match. We should have a strong understanding and respect for people's capabilities. We, as recruiters, often know the environment of the company, the specific tasks of the role, the difficulties that a new person will have to face, and also often we know other people from the team. A candidate has only a job offer, maybe a little more information from the recruiter, social media/website and their visions of the vacancy and company. So we, as recruiters, should be very attentive during the process, because from our conclusions comes the result of the process, which means - who we choose. We are more familiar with the company and the role than the candidate, so we must be able to assess as accurately as possible whether the candidate will feel comfortable in that particular position. For instance, can they handle the stress that is inherent in the role? Or will they become bored with the repetitiveness of tasks in that specific environment? It is our responsibility to investigate these aspects.

The recruiter's responsibility in this context is twofold. On one hand, they are accountable for finding the best fit for a particular position, and on the other hand, they are responsible for ensuring that the organization and the position are suitable for the candidate. To prevent later disappointments on either side, beyond assessing the candidate's qualifications and approach, it's essential to consider that their temperament traits can influence both their job satisfaction and performance in a given role. A stellar employee in one environment may struggle in a different setting. Of course, we can also phrase it differently - an excellent work environment for one employee may be a suboptimal one for another person.

Is it possible to change our temperament?

Well, according to Strelau - yes. Temperament traits are relatively stable, but they can change. But, it is a long-term process because genes play a huge role here, as well as the years in which our environment has influenced our temperament.