If you’re looking for an employee on the front lines of your business (salespeople, customer service, etc), you might have this image of an outgoing, gregarious individual. Or maybe you picture the aggressive (pushy?) self-confident types, who relentlessly drive sales results.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but you (and pop culture) are wrong – these types can actually be the worst choices for your front lines. If you’re targeting only these types during your hiring process, odds are you’re only hurting your sales success.

Here’s why.

A study from the Harvard Business Review found that effective salespeople do not necessarily exhibit a particular personality type – extroverted, introverted, etc. The study focuses instead on seven “skills related to sales success.” For example, the Socializer, the outgoing type most people think makes for an effective salesperson, is “the worst-performing when it comes to making the sale.” How can this be? As it turns out, “Socializers tend to chit-chat at the expense of actually making the sales pitch.”

Similarly, Storytellers focus on “how other clients used the product or solved the problem,” but taken to extremes their stories are “counterproductive…The danger for storytellers is they pay too much attention to these past customers, and not enough on those sitting in front of them.” Time is valuable and these types use too much of it by not getting to the point. This makes sense to me – I avoid the incessantly chatty cashier at my supermarket – and she’s always the only cashier without a line, so I don’t think I’m alone there.

Another HBR study found that:

“…Contrary to conventional stereotypes that successful salespeople are pushy and egotistical, 91 percent of top salespeople had medium to high scores of modesty and humility.”

Likewise, it was actually a lack of gregariousness (a preference for being with people and friendliness) that resulted in higher performance – “top performers averaged 30 percent lower gregariousness than below average performers.” As the researchers conclude, “ostentatious salespeople who are full of bravado alienate far more customers than they win over.”

In other words, for fans of The Office, would you rather deal with Dwight, or Jim?

So who should I hire?

If we’ve torn down everything you thought was true, and your mental picture of a good salesperson is now just a formless wraith, don’t worry. We can rebuild it – we have the technology.

If you want the best sales profile possible, ideally you should seek out an ambivert (a mostly equal mixture of introverted and extroverted traits).

A study by Adam Grant at U Penn’s Wharton School found that:

“In a three-month period, [ambiverts] made 24% more in sales revenue than introverts, and 32% more in revenue than extroverts.”

No, that’s not backwards. Not only did the ambiverts outperform extroverts, but the gregarious extroverts were actually the worst performing for total revenues earned, of all three personality types. And introverts and extroverts both “pulled in roughly the same percentage of sales.”

Why are ambiverts so much more effective? As Grant puts it:

“The ambivert advantage stems from the tendency to be assertive and enthusiastic enough to persuade and close, but at the same time, listening carefully to customers and avoiding the appearance of being overly confident or excited.”

Some hiring managers try to whittle down their applicant pool by focusing only on the extreme extroverts, and then wonder why finding a great candidate is so difficult. It’s no wonder – most people are ambiverts, so the most effective salespeople were ruled out before they were even considered. It’s even possible an ambivert who can do the job is already on staff, but was ruled out in favor of the boasting and gregarious candidates. That perfect person to do the job might be right down the hall.

First Impressions

Think about the last time you were hiring someone for a sales or customer service role. First impressions matter, right? During the interview, you were probably laser-focused on whether the candidate had that gregarious and outgoing personality. So when the candidate was nervous and didn’t effectively sell themselves exactly like you imagined, you ruled them out. They were nervous the first time they met you, so how are they supposed to make a great first impression and effectively sell your product or service to customers?

But we’ve written before about the differences between interview skills and working skills. Turns out that candidate who nailed the interview, and made that phenomenal first impression? He might only be great at interviewing because he’s pretty lousy at doing the actual job. In fact, the study we referenced found “the contributions of extroverts were not as good as expected and the introvert performed beyond expectations in a team environment.” Are we saying to take an extroverted candidate out of consideration, solely because of their personality? Of course not. Just include the introverts and ambiverts in the mix as well. Studies show they’ll often surprise you.

If you’d like to stop wasting your time on the irrelevant, superficial aspects of interviewing and start understanding the deeper elements of what really predicts the success of a new hire, read our post on How to Conduct a Job Interview so Top Performers Actually Want to Take Your Job.

And, if you prefer all that research and information pulled together into one attractive document you can easily share with others, download the Staffing Advisors Employer Guide to Interviewing.