Blog 3 of 3: What’s Wrong with Being the Personality Hire?

Recently, the term personality hire has grown in popularity on social media. Depending on who you ask, it's either a compliment or an insult. For some people, the personality hire is the colleague who keeps the office alive. They bring energy into meetings, make everyone laugh, help new starters settle in, and somehow know everyone's birthday. For others, it's someone who got the job without deserving it: someone hired because they were "fun" rather than competent.

I won't say I strive to be one. But I also don't really see what's wrong with being called a personality hire. Or perhaps, more accurately, I don't think people always mean what they think they mean. If you've read the other two blogs in this little series, you'll know we've already spoken about networking and talking to strangers. At first glance, soft skills might seem like an entirely different topic. But in my head, they have always belonged together. Networking starts with conversations. Conversations become relationships. Relationships eventually become opportunities. And what sustains those relationships over time isn't charisma or luck; it's character.

So perhaps the better question isn't whether being a personality hire is good or bad, but rather: what do people actually mean when they say: "personality hire"?

More often than not, I don't think they're talking about personality at all. They're talking about soft skills. When employers describe someone as a "great fit", they're rarely saying they're the funniest person in the room. More often, they mean someone who communicates clearly, collaborates well with others, adapts to change, stays calm under pressure, takes initiative, learns quickly and makes people feel comfortable working alongside them. Those aren't fixed personality traits. They're skills. And, like any other skill, they can be developed.

More Than Just Being Nice

Soft skills are often treated as something you're simply born with. You're either "good with people" or you're not. I don't think that's true. Most of the people I admire weren't naturally confident communicators or exceptional leaders from the beginning. They became those people because they intentionally practised the behaviours that eventually became part of who they were. The same way you wouldn't expect to become fluent in another language after one lesson, you can't expect confidence, resilience or leadership to magically appear the first time you need them. They grow through repetition and become habits. And eventually, they become part of your personality. Below, I will break down a list of soft skills shared by Matt Gray, CEO of Founders OS and his own Enterprise, as well as content creator, and reflect on how I’ve seen them in my life, and how they can be developed and implemented in our lives.

Emotional Intelligence

If I had to choose one soft skill that influences every other, it would probably be emotional intelligence. It isn't simply about "being emotional". It's about understanding yourself well enough to recognise your own reactions, understanding others enough to empathise with theirs, and learning to respond rather than simply react.

One book I have to go back to regularly is the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Although written nearly two thousand years ago, many of the reflections are relevant today. Again and again, he comes back to ideas of self-awareness, discipline, perspective and accepting what is outside our control while taking responsibility for what is within it. That mindset changes how we experience setbacks. Job rejection still hurts, not getting the internship is still disappointing, and receiving difficult feedback is never comfortable. But emotional intelligence allows those moments to become information rather than identity. Instead of asking, Why am I not good enough?, we begin asking, What can I learn from this? That shift alone can completely change the direction of our lives.

It also changes how we interact with others. Empathy makes collaboration easier. Self-awareness makes communication clearer. Emotional control makes people trust us under pressure. Those aren't personality traits; they're skills we practise every day.

Vision Isn't Having Every Answer

People have asked me what I wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Teachers asked, family asked, friends asked. And at one point, I genuinely believed I wanted to study Politics and be a politician. I had imagined a career that matched that vision and assumed that was the obvious path forward. Then, after finishing high school, I realised something that completely changed my plans. The degree I thought I wanted wasn't actually the one that would lead me towards the work I hoped to do. I would have spent years studying subjects that didn't excite me simply because I'd convinced myself that was the route I wanted to take. So I stepped back and went to college for a year instead. At the time, it felt like I'd fallen behind, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Today I'm about to enter my final year studying a degree I genuinely love. I've met friends I never would have known otherwise, built relationships with lecturers and experienced opportunities that wouldn't have existed if I'd rushed into university a year earlier. If you asked me what I want to do in the future, I'd still tell you that, ideally, I'd become a Minister of Education somewhere someday. But that's a direction, not a graduate job or a five-year plan. Vision isn't about knowing every single step before you take the first one; it's about knowing roughly where you're heading while remaining flexible enough to adjust the route along the way.

Resilience Is Usually Quite Boring

When we think about resilience, we often imagine dramatic stories of people overcoming impossible odds. In reality, it doesn’t look that exciting. Resilience is sending another application after receiving five rejections. It's rewriting or tailoring your CV to each application. It's asking for feedback even though they might not reply to your email. It's changing your strategy instead of giving up.

One quote that has always stayed with me comes from Hamilton the Musical:

"Hamilton doesn't hesitate. He exhibits no restraint. He takes and he takes and he keeps winning anyway. He changes the game he plays and he raises the stakes."

Of course, real life isn't a Broadway musical. But there is something powerful about refusing to let one setback become the end of the story. Sometimes resilience isn't heroic, but simply deciding to try again tomorrow.

Leadership Starts With Yourself

Leadership is often misunderstood as managing people. I think it's much simpler than that. Growing up, my parents always told me that I should treat other people's belongings with the same care as my own. The older I've become, the more I realise leadership works similarly. I can't expect accountability from others if I don't hold myself accountable first. I can't expect kindness if I'm not willing to show it. I can't expect effort if I don't model it myself. Matt Gray reflects on this by saying:

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Leadership also means taking ownership and not blaming circumstances, by not immediately becoming the victim when things go wrong and embracing extreme ownerships, of our actions and reactions and encouraging ourselves to ask what we could have done differently, before pointing fingers elsewhere. At the same time, great leaders flatten hierarchies. They don't make people feel small. They create environments where everyone feels comfortable contributing ideas, asking questions and making mistakes. Leadership isn't about status but responsibility.

The Decisions Nobody Notices

Every day we make dozens of decisions that slowly shape the person we become. Some are huge. But most aren't. Should I spend another hour scrolling Instagram or finish tomorrow's reading? Should I stay out later even though I have work in the morning? Should I apply for that opportunity even if I'm not completely qualified?

Matt proposes separating “Reversible decisions from Irreversible ones”. If something can easily be changed later, decide quickly and move on. Save your energy for the decisions that genuinely shape your future. Being decisive isn't about removing fun from your life. It's about making intentional choices instead of accidental ones.

Learning How to Learn

One of the most valuable skills any student can develop is their own learning agility. In other words, learning how to learn. Employers care about experience, but they also care about your ability to acquire new skills and knowledge when circumstances change. That means being curious, trying things you're not yet good at, looking for feedback, and building evidence that you can implement what you've learned in one setting to another. The more often we place ourselves in situations where we're learning something unfamiliar, the easier learning itself becomes. Curiosity builds.

So... What's Wrong With Being the Personality Hire?

Perhaps nothing. If being a personality hire simply means you're approachable, communicate well, collaborate effectively, remain calm under pressure, continue learning and genuinely enjoy working with other people, then those qualities deserve far more recognition that they sometimes receive online. Personality alone probably won't get someone hired. But soft skills often will. And the encouraging part is that every one of us can improve them.

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Looking back across these three blogs, I think they all arrive at the same conclusion. Networking starts with conversations. Conversations become relationships. Relationships are sustained by character. Perhaps what people call "personality" is simply the visible result of practising soft skills every single day. So don't just invest in your CV, invest in becoming someone who listens well, learns continuously, leads quietly, recovers from setbacks, makes thoughtful decisions and helps others feel valued. Because those are the people others enjoy studying, working alongside, and growing with. And maybe that's the kind of personality worth being hired for.

Written by Annabella Alovatti.

Edited by Abby Johnston-Jones.