The Application of MBTI Theory in Hiring Sales Staffs
Chang Luo 1
1
School of Economy and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China
(chinaluochang@126.com)
Abstract- In China, many small and medium-sized
enterprises are not standardized in sales personnel
recruiting procedures, they only tend to examine the
candidates' knowledge and skills however ignore the
important psychological evaluation factors, which results to
employ unsuitable staffs and come into an inefficient
recruitment cycle. By the analysis using MBTI scale theory,
the personality types that sales staffs entail are ESTJ or
ESFJ. Setting the sales backbone’s personality datum as a
paradigm, applying it to the recruitment of sales staffs and
pro-job trainings, can improve new employees’
organizational adaptability, and their performance, increase
organizational cohesive force, besides reduce turnover rates.
Keywords-Application; MBTI theory; recruitment; sales
staff
Ⅰ. INTRODUCTION
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a kind of
personality test. Many scholars all over the world have
been studying on it and make great success. It is widely
used in many ways. For example, it can help identify
effective teacher personality traits[ 1 ], and it can help
improve teams’ effectiveness by individuals’ training on
the type of personality of team members[2]. This article
mainly talks about the application of MBTI theory in
hiring sales staffs, analyzing what the personality type
sales staffs should be, and how to use personality test in
the recruitment.
Ⅱ. NECESSITY ANALYSIS
In our country, many small and medium-sized
enterprises are facing up with the status which is very
difficult to obtain outstanding sales staffs. Investigating
the root causes, in order to reduce recruitment costs,
shorten recruitment time, and use new labor as soon as
possible, many companies’ sales staff recruiting
procedures are not standardized, only tend to examine the
candidates' knowledge and skills, and ignore factors such
as mental evaluation, resulting in error appointments.
Always facing vacancies, enterprises are frequent for
recruitment, however, which is inefficient, still doesn’t
realize the people-positions matches, and ultimately go
into a void recruitment cycle. Moreover, even if some
companies consume a lot of recruitment costs, screen out
candidates with good performance after many rounds of
interviews, the new staff members in the actual work are
tough to cope with difficulties, whose performances are
mediocre. How to recruit suitable staffs? What kind of
employees can bring about high performance?
I believe that the recruitment of sales staff focuses on
the psychological evaluation. Inspection of candidates’
knowledge and skills is the basis for screening out the
candidates of same basic conditions, then the
psychological evaluation of candidates decides who can
get the final Offer. The psychological evaluation can be
divided into the overall capacity assessment, dynamic
assessment and personality assessment [ 3 ]. This paper
mainly talks about how to recruit sales staffs effectively
with the application of MBTI scales in personality
assessment.
Personality is the organic combination of individual
character, attitudes and habits. Personality is some
characteristics of continuity, harmony and relative
stability. It reflects men’s inner hidden nature. Personality
can be analyzed as personality characteristics and
behavior tendency quantitatively that can adjust men’s
action stably [ 4 ].The analysis of high-performance
employees’ personality characteristics can provide
reference for human resources planning. MBTI scale is
one method in personality tests, and it can be put into
practice in whatever kind of recruitment channels.
Ⅲ. BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO MBTI THEORY
Myers Briggs type index (MBTI) representing men’s
characters, is formulated by Katherine Briggs and her
daughter Isabel Briggs Myers in 1962[5]. The index is
founded on 8 types divided by Swiss psychologist Carl
Jung, and measures personal interests and personality
characteristics by Four Groups of Tendency Dichotomies;
each tendency dichotomy group composes of two poles[6].
The so-called tendency (preference) is a kind of specific
behaviors and thinking ways, with no right or wrong.
They identify some normal and valuable behaviors.
Considering four dimensions as four rulers, each
character fells on a certain point on the scale. If it’s very
close to one pole, the one has preference in this regard [7].
MBTI theory inspects personal preferences from the
following four dimensions:
(1) Energy tendency- Extraversion (E) and
Introversion (I).Men belong to type E are good at
expressing emotions and ideas and are much more active
and motivated; men in Type I like to think in silence, and
they will not show their emotions and ideas easily.
(2) Information acceptation-Sensing (S) and
Intuition (N).Men of Type S sense things with perception,
they have outstanding observation skills and are good at
memorizing for details. While men in Types N believe in
the sixth sense, they predict the future following with
imagination and inspiration.
(3) Information procession--Thinking (T) and
Feeling (F).Men in Type T are relatively objective and
integrate. They have a clear mind, and will not be
influenced by emotions. They like analyzing things,
besides they pay much attention to the essential contacts,
act in accordance with principles and norms. What the
difference is that men of type F are more considerate and
mercy, they care about interpersonal relationships,
appreciate others, and also enjoy being praised.
(4) Action ways--Judging (J) and Perceiving (P). J
type people like developing in plan and organization,
while P types prefer to let it slide.
MBTI scale can be seen as follow:
Energy tendency
Extraversion
Introversion
Information acceptation
Sensing
Intuition
Information procession
Sensing
Intuition
Action ways
Judging
Perceiving
Fig.1. MBTI scale sketch
Ⅳ. MBTI ANALYSIS OF SALES STAFFS
We know that the combination of four MBTI
dimensions will form sixteen different personality types.
Each type has its suitable jobs. So we apply MBTI theory
to enterprises’ recruitment tests, figuring out job seekers’
personality types, comparing their character tendencies
with enterprise values, and selecting out those who fit
enterprise cultures or will fit after pro-job trainings. Of
course, it is inevitable that job seekers have studied the
enterprise in advance and cheated in evaluations. But it’s
worthy of being explored the effective application of
MBTI method to recruitment process which can judge job
seekers’ characteristic tendencies in a short time.
What kind of person is suitable for sales? After a
summary of excellent sales men’s character traits, we can
conclude the characters a competent sales staff should
possess. The author thinks that, her characters should be
extraversion tendency, open, bright and optimistic. She
should have certain interpersonal skills and good
professional attitudes. She will not retreat confronting
setbacks and rejections. What’s more, she has unswerving
spirit and certain ability to bear stress. Successful sales
personnel are sensitive to environmental changes, they
can catch words which suggest customers’ subtle
psychology changes and find clues, altering their
offensive strategies flexibly. They will put themselves in
for the sake of the customers to earn favorable impression
and trust. This kind of memory for details and observation
is typically what men in type S owes. People with T type
personality are objective, integrate, rational and cold.
When they meet with principled problems, they think the
circumstances are excusable but the law cannot forgive.
Sales personnel always meet with actual practice those
poor quality customers who sternly refuse and even abuse
in countless, they should be calm to solve the problem in
a rational way, don’t be swayed by emotions. Sales staffs
generally desire to be encouraged by words such as
"thank you" "you did great”, so they will have motivation
to work hard to achieve next sales target. Taking these
into consideration, I think sales staffs’ index in the
treatment of information should lie in the middle state of
thinking T and emotion F. The index very partial in
anyone of the two poles indicates that she is not suitable
for sales occupations on the contrary.
In respect of action ways, J type personality is
suitable for sales. The enterprise’s annual profit increase
mainly relies on the expansion of production and the
increase of sales. It’s necessary that sales personnel
realize enterprise sales goal bottom-up gradually in a
planned way to realize enterprise’s annual marketing
strategy and the growth of profit margin. While P type
personality prefers to experience constantly and let things
slide. They are more suitable for freelancers.
To sum up, the personality types sales occupations
entail are ESTJ or ESFJ assessed by MBTI scale. The
assessment result can be used as the reference of
personality types when recruiting sales personnel.
However, the matching personality type with position is
not established. What kind of personality sales staff
should possess reaches no conclusion. Some do not have
this kind of character features can also do very well in
sales, hence the result can only play an employment
reference role.
E
I
S
N
T
F
J
P
Fig.2.Sales staffs’ MBTI type
Ⅴ. MBTI SCALES IN THE RECRUITMENT OF
SALES STAFFS
The application of MBTI scale in the recruitment of
sales staffs, firstly employees with excellent performance
in sales positions should be analyzed. Compare the
personality traits of the outstanding performance
employees with general performance employees, analyze
the datum of the paradigm, and obtain the characteristics
the positions require. Then it can be used as a corporate
recruiting reference.
To select the best sales staffs from a variety of
channels, MBTI scale can act as an evaluation basis.
Internal recruitment may unearth the talents of potential
from non-sales department, in the end to utilize human
resource within the enterprise to the upmost[ 8 ]. For
candidates who are not engaged in before and intend to do
now, HR department will screen out job transforming
applications of intent and communicate with relevant
departments to understand the backgrounds (work
records, trainings, etc.).Then they identify candidates
initially, then use MBTI scales with other evaluation
methods to conduct personality test, to see whether the
character traits and vacancies match.
For the open recruitment process, first of all HR
department should screen out the candidates’ resumes.
After the initial interview, a few people are allowed to do
the test with the MBTI scale before the second interview.
After resume screening and initial interview, the
interviewers pick out candidates whose qualifications,
experience, and skills meet the requirements of corporate
recruitment. Those candidates are likely to eventually be
hired[9].The next stage evaluation focus on examining the
candidates’ quality, career interests, motivations, and
attitudes to see whether they are consistent with the
statements of work and whether their values are in
accordance with the corporate values asked. The results in
this stage of evaluation should account for 2/3 in the final
admission factors. If the business interview process is
relatively simple, personality test can be used between the
interview has been over and before the final decision is
made. What’s more, the interviewers should explain to
interviewees the reason why they are not admitted to the
corporation.
In addition, the results of the MBTI scale evaluation
can also serve as the basis for future training. In some
enterprises, sales department takes into account that the
human resources are relatively abundant, they regulate
only passing through pro-job training assessment can
finally mean the end of the recruitment. Sales personnel
need to understand the enterprise’s management concept,
values, sales strategies and sales tasks in order to go on
well, which are all the content included in pro-job
training. Pro-job training can be classified into common
training and professional training, which can be divided
into several phases [10]. The result of MBTI assessment
can help determine what training employees are needed.
In department training phase, department heads can make
training plans flexibly according to different personality
qualities, customizing specific training schedules for
employees, to make them orient to their positions quickly
and improve cohesive force of the organization and the
employees’ performance levels. The assessment results of
MBTI scale can also be used into employees’ career
planning and management, helping them knowing their
own advantages and disadvantages in early period, to
customize career developing courses suitable for
themselves, making preparation for well developed
achievement period around the corner.
Ⅵ. CONCLUSION
The MBTI scale is one of the personality test. Using
personality test in recruitment procedure can help HR find
the right person. Sales occupations personality type
should be ESTJ or ESFJ assessed by MBTI scale, which
is the reference when recruiting sales staffs in variable
channels. It can finally improve the performance of the
sales staffs, make employees feel being valued, and
reduce the turnover rate.
ACKNOWLEGMENT
This article is the first attempt to discuss the
solutions of recruiting sales staff by using MBTI scale. It
will have a broad developing space in the future. Thanks
for Cheng-ju QIN, a teacher of school of economy and
management in North China Electric Power University.
Thanks for her patient guidance and great help.
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