To agree that charm is more useful than qualifications

[bubblybox]

Inspired by India Knight's article today. I don't often agree with her views, but this one struck a chord with me.

I was shy and an academic high-flier as a child. The fact I was socially awkward to the point of appearing rude and humourless to adults is still impacting me negatively today. I strongly believe I would have had some very valuable headstarts up the career ladder and enjoyed much more fulfilling relationships had I been encouraged to be charming at school rather than focusing single-mindedly on getting all the qualifications I could.

I do think India is incorrect with one assumption though - she thinks all public schools teach charm and manners. Mine certainly didn't, and I think I was at a disadvantage for this - it wasn't until I was well into Uni that I realised that personality and sociability counted for a lot more in the wider world than book smarts.

I prefer intelligence and wit to charm, personally.

I think it is much easier to get on in life generally if you are likeable. It's easy to make friends, get jobs and the world usually responds to what you put out. Assuming you are appropriately qualified for the job you want, you don't need to be the most qualified or the best person for the job, as my DMum always says, 'If they like you, they'll take you' - they want to know if they could work with you, if clients/customers will like you, if you'll be easy to manage. I do agree that personality counts for a lot in life.

I recruit people as part of my job.

So long as someone has the minimum qualification they need to do the job, I will recruit the person I like the best.

So if candidate A has A levels and candidate B has a double first degree, I would still employ A if I liked them better, so long as the job requirement only required A levels as a minimum.

I am another one who has never failed to get a job they were interviewed for.

Wow emsyj you said that so much better than I did!!

When I've recruited, I have appointed the best person, not the one I liked the most. It's called equal opportunities.

What has that got to do with equal opportunities mother? I wouldn't discriminate against anyone due to gender/age/sexual pref/race etc etc. The last person I recruited was a 70 year old woman.

Why would I recruit someone I think I would find it difficult to work with or manage? Someone that my clients would not get along with? That would be rather stupid wouldn't it?

That's cos I'm so charmin' like, hampton!

Have you ever employed someone you didn't like, motherinferior? Do you recruit people that you will personally have to work with? I would be utterly astonished if someone interviewing a candidate that they had to work with would employ someone they disliked, even if they had the best paper qualifications.

I think competence is not the same as likeability, that's all. And that you are confusing the two.

So you'd say: this person is great, masses of relevant experience, terrific ideas for developing the role, but I just don't like them? I'll give the job to someone else I like more even if they won't do it as well?

Bullshit Baffles Brains!

I think the ability to get on with people and make an impression certainly goes a long way. I have a friend who on paper is not a high achiever academically but she has excelled on her career due to her personality. On the other hand my Dsis who has just completed a degree is very very shy. Her social awkwardness is going to be a major drawback in gaining employment. She has already struggled just to get part time work as a student because she just clams up in interviews.
Having said this I notice that in my DCs primary lots of emphasis is placed on pushing those quieter members of the class to the front in assemblies and other events which I am very pleased about.

I think actually it depends on the job, mother. I am an ex lawyer, now a civil servant - arguably in my current job, given that I have fairly limited contact with the public and also given that the work I do isn't commercial (i.e. the public don't have to like me or choose to deal with me, they just have to find me competent and not rude) you might select without worrying about the likeability factor. In fact, there is no 'interview' for the job I have now - it's selected entirely on the basis of assessment centre performance. BUT - as a lawyer, being likeable is very much part of the job. You are dealing with clients who can walk away and choose to deal with someone else they like better (and who is just as competent as you are) at any moment. I would think many industries in the commercial world have this issue - they need to employ likeable people because if the clients don't like them, they won't use them. Also, it makes life easier if everyone in the company can rub along together surely?

I can't think of very many examples of jobs where likeability is not at least part of being competent.

If I was thinking "this person is great" that would mean I liked them.

The OP asked about qualifications vs charm.

No way would I employ someone I didn't like, no matter how qualified they were, it would be a recipe for disaster. I would rather develop the skills and experience of someone I like more and I think most people would do the same.

I think it would be quite unusual to actively choose someone you didn't like to spend your working day with.

"Yes, he is really offensive, let's have him!"

I would have thought in an interview situation - when you have two people of the same standing, an employer is going to choose the person they think will get on best with the team etc.

mother, I've never been in a management/HR role so I've never been involved in recruitment, but no, I wouldn't employ someone I didn't like if I knew I would have to face them in the office every morning - however fabulous their CV was! I wouldn't employ someone who I didn't feel was well qualified for the role either though. I suspect in the real world during these economic times that most jobs have a sufficient range of applicants that you can choose between two or more very well qualified individuals and select the one who will fit in with the team, the clients and not be difficult to manage.

Yes, charm is as important as qualifications. With the job market as it is, it's essential to have good people skills.

For one, there's so many college educated people out there, that your CV/resume is going to become one in a million when applying for a job. You need to make yourself stand out.

For another, careers don't operate inside bubbles. Every single job you need to have good interpersonal relationship skills with people. No one is irreplaceable. Dr. House MD's don't exist. For every genius doctor that gets fired, there's another to take their place (even charming ones).

Think of all the coworkers you hate. Now imagine someone that you get along with that can do the same thing. That's why charm is important.

Also, if I had to choose between hiring a person who was charming and willing to learn, or a person who knew a lot and was rigid, I'd pick the charming person because every company is unique and you need to adapt to specific situations in the work force. I can teach a willing student, I can't lead a stubborn horse to water and make them drink.

I was once turned down for a job because in the interviewer's words I was "not bright and bubbly enough". I was already doing the job as agency and they were happy to let me continue when they failed to recruit someone permanent, bastards, I was a single mum and too desperate to tell them to shove it. I later got a similar job after being head hunted by an old acquaintance from university and his boss rubber stamped the decision for the exact reason the other one turned me down, they had had too many bad experiences with people with much in the shop window and little in stock so to speak. So I would say it definitely depends on the situation and what the other people involved are actually looking for.

This is interesting. At work my team had to deal with a senior manager who is beatifully charming, everyone's favourite etc. Great qualifications on paper. After a few months it became obvious that he was incompetent, after he was asked to leave it was discovered that the incompetence was bordering on criminal irresponsibility. It was a huge headache to sort his mess out and we were su lucky no-one got hurt and we weren't sued due to his actions.

We still find it hard to reconcile the genuinely warm, charming, well-spoken manner with his jaw-droppingly disastrous tenure. This person has come back to my life now and his "new" colleagues can't speak of him highly enough. I am horrified and wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. I haven't got a clue re how to deal with him

I wouldn't want someone too "bubbly" either, it would be irritating

So yes, I think with the first employer, maybe you wouldn't have fitted in with their team and what they wanted, but in the second case, they knew you had the personality they wanted for that role.

In both cases, it wasn't your qualifications that were the issue.

Lord knows nobody would describe me as bubbly!

I'm usually fairly confident that if I get to interview stage for a job that I will get it.

Same. I have very rarely made it to the interview and not gotten the job. By that point though, they've already decided you look good on paper, now they want to see if you're a good fit. You really have nothing to prove at that point beyond being likable.

I always tell the person interviewing that if I don't have a particular skill they are looking for that I'm a fast learner and I love learning new things. Really, that's all most companies are looking for. Someone that's easy to get along with, willing to take direction, and smart enough to learn the specific skill sets required. No job is the same, even in the same field, I've had massively different job assignments and descriptions under the same job title. Almost all my bosses loved me and would hire me again (and some have), despite not being a fountain of unending knowledge.

Some of the most charming people I know are estate agents.

You need qualifications to actually get an interview so that you can charm them into giving you a job. So I wouldn't say charm is more important, you can't really put 'I'm charming' on your cv.

I agree to a certain extent. My older son can be very charming and personable. People tend to want to help him and it was unusual (although not unknown) for him to have a teacher that didn't like him and want to help him. Luck seems to fall into his lap and both times he has applied for a summer job he has got an easy well paid one without any trouble when some of his friends have struggled.

My younger son is more prickly. We shall see how that goes...

A lot of the time though people's perception is hugely coloured by how you look. We say charming but I have a suspicion that this is often a proxy for good looking.

Attractive people are more likely to get jobs they apply for, to get a lesser sentence if in court, all sorts of things. Good looking children even get higher marks from teachers who know them than when marked blind.