This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
This essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Bennett, the 28-year-old founder of DX Creative, a social consulting agency, and former advertising account manager. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I was a “personality attitude.”
When I applied for my first corporate job at a huge advertising agency in LA called TBWAChiatDay, my goal was for the interviewers to like me – that was it.
I wasn’t there to impress them or show them I could learn or whatever. I thought, “If I can make them laugh and smile and have a good time, that will be more memorable than someone who can recite all of their awards.”
Since it was an advertising agency in LA, there was a basketball court in the office and their first question was, “Did you see the basketball court behind you?”
My opening line in the interview was: “Yes, I took warm-up photos for this interview before you guys came. Am I sweaty?” They loved that; They laughed their heads off.
I ended up beating two people with three or four years of experience even though I had no experience at all.
Difference between a personality attitude and a good personality
There is a difference between a personality type and someone who just has a good personality.
Imagine coming to work with your coffee and the co-worker says, “You’ll never guess who I met this weekend!”
A normal person might keep this information to themselves, but a personality type will want to entertain the office with their hilarious story of how they ran into an ex.
We can get away with doing less work
As a personality manager, you can get away with not being that competent and only doing half your job. (I’m not that kind of person, but such personality preferences exist.)
Does that mean someone else is picking up the slack? Probably. However, it is at the company’s discretion to decide whether to keep you.
There are certain people who may not be able to pass tests or build a marketing rollout, but are very successful in their roles because they are smart. Maybe a recruiter has a lot of contacts and “always knows a guy” who can get you into a restaurant that is fully booked for six months, which can lead to a deal being closed. But maybe that person doesn’t know how to write a letter.
These “know a man” skills are really useful in careers based on relationship management, which is more important than being good at sending emails.
However, if you are just a personality and do no work at all, you will be fired.
Even though I had a personality attitude, I still worked hard; I was working 60 hours a week and staying up until 1 a.m. so we could finish a commercial.
In such cases, positive personality attitudes help. Joking with your colleagues at 1 a.m. on a deadline is much more bearable than when everyone is miserable.
Because I was a personality, I could call in favors
In the office, I was the one who said, “Guys, we have an hour between meetings. Let’s go for a walk and grab some lunch!” Or “Let’s get a smoothie.” Or: “This place celebrates happy hour after work. Are you coming?” It’s these little things that some companies would call team bonding.
As a sub-account assistant, I did all the grunt work, such as organizing files and collecting hard drives.
But I was always good at walking around the office and talking to different people to build relationships; Instead of sending a Slack message or an email, I went to them and asked them.
I’ve always thought that if I need a favor from someone, they’re much more likely to help me if I walk up to them and say “hi” than just send them an email and never talk to them.
The world runs on favors, and you don’t do favors for people you don’t like.
If I needed a quick revision to a design or billboard, I could ask a designer for a favor and they would be willing to work with me on it within a tight deadline.
Companies need personalities to build their corporate culture
Companies that pride themselves on having “disruptive” and different work cultures need personalities, because who else will build this culture?
It may be controversial to say this, but employees without outgoing personalities won’t strengthen your company culture – hires without personalities aren’t as fun at parties or cause gossip in the office. For Generation Z and Millennials, there are other motivators for going to work than just getting the job done.
Personality hires can also help companies attract good talent by providing the energy that attracts other people to work at your company.
According to Bennett, personality attitudes play an important role in building company culture. Daniel Bennett on BI
Building relationships is extremely important in industries such as entertainment, sales and consulting. Making money often depends on people being similar.
In these industries, personality hires could add more value than employees who just do the actual work.
As a boss, I try to hire people with good personalities
After two years at TBWAChiatDay, I quit and in 2021 founded DX Creative, a social agency supporting artists, celebrities and brands with short-form content and advice.
When I think about who to add to my team, I’m much more likely to make an offer to someone if I like them.
Since we work directly with talent and celebrities, we need people who can be friends with them. There’s a lot of traveling involved, so imagine traveling with someone you don’t like. That would upset people, so we need people who resonate with the artist they’re working with.
We are looking for people with good personalities who can either be taught in a very short time or have the experience that we can convert into what we need.
Ultimately, personality attitude doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job; It just means that your personality helped you get hired.