A client emailed me the following question, one that comes up surprisingly often:

"We received your Performance Profile Report for Fred Jones, an applicant for manager of our shipping department.  His Sociability rating is '8,' but his Friendliness rating is '3.'  How can a person be very sociable and not very friendly at the same time?"

"Friendly" and "Sociable":  Not The Same Thing

To understand the difference between these two characteristics, Sociability and Friendliness, let me first quickly review their definitions.  Sociability refers to the effect that being around other people has on an individual; one way is to think of it as a measure of the person's extroversion or introversion.  People with high Sociability ratings like extended contact with people; it energizes them.  People with low Sociability ratings feel drained of energy when they must be around people for extended periods of time; it takes effort for them to do so.

Friendliness refers to how important it is to an individual to get along with other people.  People with high Friendliness ratings work very hard at getting along with people, and enjoy doing so ; others typically see them as warm and considerate.  People with low Friendliness ratings usually do not see it as important to work hard at getting along with others and to make sure that everyone gets along with one another; these people often seem abrupt, not tactful or diplomatic, or even confrontational, but they tend to see themselves as "focused on the issues, not on personalities."

Now, Back To Our Question

A person with a high Sociability rating and a low Friendliness rating is a person who can tolerate, even thrive on, extended contact with people without feeling the need to be concerned about others' needs or reactions.  For example, this person can be very good at making conversation, establishing and maintaining rapport, and seeming to "never meet a stranger."  On the other hand, this person will usually not devote more time than is necessary, in a work setting, to anything other than his or her own agenda in encounters with other people.

Sound Vaguely Familiar?

Effective sales people often have this particular combination of high Sociability and low Friendliness.  They are able to call on prospect after prospect without tiring, chat them up quite well, and seem to be friendly.  If (or when) they ascertain that the sale is unlikely or the prospect is not a qualified one, they are quite good at terminating the conversation and moving on to the next prospect.  They are there to make sales, not to make friends.

And What About Fred?

Sustained working relationships depend on the willingness and ability of the participants to get along well under a variety of circumstances.  Fred's combination of high Sociability and low Friendliness, however, does not wear well on co-workers in the long run.  He will tend to seem "two-faced" to some subordinates (he can "act friendly," but he pays more attention to his own agenda than to encouraging cooperation and participation,) and his relationships will probably be superficial and one-sided.  Fred himself may not be aware of what is happening because he is energized by contact with other people (high Sociability), but he will tend to be abrupt and can seem authoritarian to his co-workers.

If you haven't encountered this problem at least once, I'll eat the proverbial hat.  The situation is this:  all of the interview reports for an applicant (let's call him Joe) are very positive.  No one has strong reservations about Joe, and so he is asked to complete the Performance Profile.  But the Report comes back with surprisingly low ratings:  ratings of  "2" on Friendliness and on Objectivity, and ratings of "3" on Energy Level and Take Charge Tendencies.  How can you make sense of this apparent contradiction?

Two Explanations

There are two reasons, closely related to one another, that Performance Profile Ratings sometimes seem to contradict your impressions of the person's personality from your conversations and interviews with him or her.  First, there are some personality characteristics that don't really show up in an interview; for example, a person's Coachability (that is, willingness to take advice and suggestions) may not be apparent until he or she is actually in a position to be given directions and advice.

The second, related, reason is that job interviews and conversations between hiring managers and applicants have certain demand characteristics, and one of those is that the applicant put his or her "best foot forward."  In fact, there is a small industry dedicated to publishing books and providing training to job seekers in how to "read" the interviewer and answer questions in the way that reflects best on the applicant.  Applicants are encouraged to anticipate questions and rehearse the most effective answers.  There is nothing wrong with an applicant's wanting to make a good impression; as a matter of fact, wouldn't you rather that he or she wanted that than otherwise?  The overall effect, however, is that you may not get as accurate an impression of the "real" person.

What You See (In The Interview) Is Not Necessarily What You Get (On The Job)

This very natural desire on the applicant's part to "look good" means that the impression you get from an interview may not be a good indication of how he or she will behave on the job, when the pressure to look good is gone and the honeymoon of the first few weeks of employment have passed.  A good rule of thumb to use in evaluating interview impressions is that the behavior in the interview is likely to be better than what you are going to see on the job.

This Is Where The Performance Profile Earns Its Keep

In addition to putting his or her best foot forward in interviews, applicants often answer questions on the Performance Profile according to what seems to put them in the best possible light.  Included in the Performance Profile is a series of questions that first measures the applicant's motivation to answer questions in the socially desirable way, and then empirically adjusts the applicant's responses to the rest of the questions on the Profile.  Thus, the ratings on the Performance Profile Report have the "look good" bias removed and, therefore, more accurately reflect the applicant's actual attitudes and preferences.

The Solution:  Belt and Suspenders

The goal of your pre-employment selection process is to help you to get to know as much about the applicant's job-relevant knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality as possible so that you can evaluate the goodness of the fit between the demands of the job and the person's ability to meet those demands.  In this process, you may get information from a variety of sources, including the applicant's resume, interviews, the Performance Profile Report, reference and background checks, work samples, and other possible sources.  None of these sources is 100% reliable, 100% of the time.  The best strategy, therefore, is to use as many of them as possible, looking for common themes in the information from them all.

Always use the results of the Performance Profile in addition to all other job-relevant information that you have about an applicant.  Evaluating an applicant's suitability for a job is a difficult task, not to mention trying to make sensible predictions about his or her probable productivity on the job.  People are complex creatures; every person is a mixture of some admirable characteristics (strengths) and others that could stand improvement.  What you want to find is an applicant whose job-related strengths outweigh his or her liabilities.

Two Hiring Criteria

When making the hiring decision keep two criteria in mind:  the weaknesses (or developmental need areas) you see in the applicant should not be ones that would substantially get in the way of the person's ability to do the job and, second, they should be susceptible to being improved upon.

The Performance Profile: A Diagnostic Tool

One of the main purposes of the Performance Profile Report is to identify problems that may occur so that they can be addressed before they have a negative effect on the person's work performance.  A characteristic on the Performance Profile may point to a potential problem area that needs to be investigated further through reference checks, further interviews, or some other pre-employment evaluation method.  In this sense, the Performance Profile is a diagnostic tool; it presents a portrait of the strengths, and the development needs along with supervisory suggestions, that can be used to flesh out the picture of the applicant that you have already begun to build from all other sources of information you have.