Of course, everybody hires based on personality. Unless we are talking about huge companies with revolving-door personnel working for minimum wage, a prospective employee’s diplomas, qualifications and experience will always be secondary to whether s/he is pleasing as a person.
This strategy is understandable but it is also likely to backfire massively because stellar personal characteristics can result in a horrible first impression.
Take my current job, for instance. During the MLA interviews and my campus visit, my current colleagues made a horrible impression on me. The members of the search committee seemed indifferent and robotic. The Chair was brash, aggressive, and intimidating. She interrupted me during my lecture, behaved like a bratty and obnoxious student during my sample class, and dragged me to see her daughter’s new house at 11 pm, after a day filled with job interviews.
I decided there and then that I was never going to work with this bunch of scary weird folks. Then, of course, I had to accept the position because it was 2009 and 40% of searches in my field were cancelled while 20% more were postponed.
After I started working at this department, I realized that the unpleasant first impression these people had produced was simply an extension of their good qualities. The members of the search committe had looked so exhausted and robotic simply because they were trying to conduct a completely legitimate bona fide search. When done honestly, it is a grueling process, and the search committee was dying of fatigue. The Chair turned out to be a very direct, sincere person who always tells you exactly what she thinks and adopts you in the capacity of one of her children if she sees that you are young and confused. These qualities are precious in a boss but make a really bad first impression.
Today, I love all of my colleagues, and the Chair has become a close friend. After Eric died, she came over and we cried together for 3 hours.
Some time after I started working here, I asked the Chair why I had been selected from the hundreds of candidates that had applied.
“Oh, we really liked your personality,” she said.
Clarissa's Blog 
That’s so funny. I have a different experience with “first impressions.” I find that I always and inevitably go back to my first impression of someone. If I didn’t like someone when I first met them, and then I convince myself my first impression was too hasty and start to like said person, I always always always go back to disliking them. (And I’m not a nasty sort. I tend to like or be indifferent to people. So this is a somewhat rare albeit consistent occurrence.)
It also happens the other way. Sometimes I take a real “shine” to someone instantly. And if that happens, no matter what bumps may occur in the relationship, I always retain or circle back to my original high opinion.
And it’s been this way my whole life. And now I’m almost 40 years old yet I still find myself second guessing my first impressions of people—only to return to them eventually.
That’s wonderful that your chair is so compassionate though. I’m glad you work with supportive people. 🙂
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I’m glad you’re at home in your department. Mine is a nightmare. If it weren’t for working with other colleagues across the campus, I’d have very few friends at work.
It’s really wonderful that your chair was supportive when Eric died. Some people would not know how to act and would be standoffish. It’s so nice to have good people in your life.
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