Describe Your Personality: Descriptive Words & Phrases

One of the questions most people dislike in an interview is: "How would you describe your personality?"

What they really want to know is: What sort of person are you?

Are you someone who has initiative and gets on well with others and is flexible in attitude to different ways of working; maybe you are a great team player, or a strong leader or you describe yourself as loyal and conscientious.

Your response should always try to avoid the "open-door" or "hands-on" type of answer. Remember that 'compatibility' is much more important than 'competence'.

Put that to the test if you like - who would you rather work with? Someone who can do everything, or someone you can get on with? Does that help you to overcome your interview nerves?

So, what do they want to know? What you think of yourself and what others think may be worlds apart, but what IS important is whether you will fit in, so here are some tips with words and phrases to help you describe your personality.

This descriptive phrase packs a lot of information about your personality into one sentence:

"I am professional, confident, efficient and goal orientated with the proven ability to use my own initiative or work as part of a team."

For more self describing phrases like that go to the list of self-describing words and phrases further down this page.

You can see now that your answer to that question about your personality should always be related to the job, so leave out words like "sexy" or "daring" or even "loving". Remember, although the employer is asking personal questions about you, they are still all related to the need to answer the interview question: "what can you bring to the company?" even if they didn't actually put that question into words.

Using The Most Descriptive Words

So, I recommend that you give adjectives like reliable, loyal, adaptable and resourceful amongst others (see the list of personality describing adjectives below), but make sure you back these with supporting examples. The most important thing is to make sure you boil it all down to presenting the answer in such a way that it matches the things the employer is looking for.

Here are some short phrases you can use as a starting point to describe your personality - because at some point you will have to. You could try out two or three of these self-describing phrases together and make them sound personal and about you. I also recommend you try one of the free tests to gain a better understanding of how to describe your own personality, because its never easy!

• I am highly motivated and enthusiastic and have a keen desire to continually update my knowledge and skills

• I am a loyal employee who is hard working, dependable and trustworthy because I understand it is a two way relationship.

• I have the ability to work individually and as part of the larger organization's team

• I have a strong sense of commitment; I am able to begin a course of action and work through it until it's finished

• I have a very strong drive and motivation to continually develop my professional skills

• I have excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.

• I have the ability to relate to all types of other people I work with

• I have the ability to be flexible and adaptable in order to meet changing conditions or situations

• I am outgoing, enthusiastic and a determined individual, eager to make progress.

• I am professional, confident, efficient and goal orientated with the proven ability to use my own initiative or work as part of a team.

• I have the ability to learn quickly and my common sense helps me respond to the needs of new situations.

• I see myself as being competent and versatile with good organisational skills.

• I possess honesty and integrity; I have high professional standards and I aim to be fair and truthful in everything I do.

• I am reliable and able to be trusted to do what I have been asked to do, or what I have promised to do.

• I take pride in my personal presentation and take into consideration suitable clothing and company dress codes

• I have common sense and the ability to make decisions based on knowledge and good judgement

• I have a sense of humour and I am able to join with others and enjoy funny situations

• I maintain a balanced attitude to work and home life giving appropriate consideration to things that matter at home and at work

• I am able to deal with pressure and organise my time well, so that work and job demands get proper attention

• I am motivated and positive about the work I do by setting myself goals and working toward them.

Personality Self-Assessment

Following is a list of useful personality describing adjectives that will help you to create a more interesting response to the describe your personality question. Only use these to describe your personal characteristics that you believe you have; how you enjoy being; qualities you believe you exemplify well.

adaptable adorable agreeable alert alluring ambitious amused boundless brave bright calm capable charming cheerful coherent comfortable confident cooperative courageous courteous creative cultured dazzling decisive decorous delightful detailed determined diligent diplomatic discreet dynamic eager efficient elated eminent enchanting encouraging endurable energetic entertaining enthusiastic excellent excited exuberant	fabulous fair faithful fantastic fearless frank friendly funny generous gentle glorious good happy harmonious helpful hilarious honorable impartial industrious instinctive intuitive joyous kind kind-hearted knowledgeable level likeable lively lucky mature modern nice obedient optimistic painstaking peaceful placid plausible pleasant pleasant plucky productive protective proud punctual	quick-witted quiet rational receptive reflective resolute resourceful responsible righteous romantic sedate seemly selective self-assured self-motivated sensitive shrewd silly sincere skilful smiling splendid steadfast stimulating successful succinct tactful talented thoughtful thrifty tough trustworthy unbiased unusual upbeat versatile vigorous vivacious warm willing wise witty wonderful zany zealous

Interviewers seem to love to ask you questions that get to your perception of yourself. These may come in several forms - "Describe your personality"; "How would you describe yourself"; "What are the qualities you possess that make you the best candidate for this job"; "What do you bring to this company that will make this company stronger?" and many variations on this are commonly asked.

The whole idea of asking you to describe your personality is to try to understand whether you will fit in and the way you talk about yourself is one of the best ways to learn a lot about you quickly.

Understanding Your Personality

With these free personality tests, your personal Career Profile will help you to describe your personality in an interview and beyond that, it will help you to discover your best career choice like no other. It deals with all facets of professional development, job and career - personalized for you.

As in all other areas of your life, your personality plays a decisive role in the things you enjoy or don’t enjoy. It plays a role in why you are more successful in a particular area with less effort and why some areas might be more difficult for you and require more effort.

Click on the descriptive boxes on the right side of this screen to see how they describe your personality type and use them to expand your vocabulary and ways to describe your competence and compatibility. Identifying your skills, interests, personality type and work values will help you to find a more satisfying and rewarding career.

What do you think is your personality description? Click the relevant box and take your free personality test to get more information and help you make the right career decisions.

Why Bother With A Test?

Because recruitment is an expensive business it is extremely important for employers to get it right first time and personality testing provides a useful aid for recruitment but should only be used as part of the overall process. Poor selection decisions made by interviewers or hiring managers can result in further recruitment costs, additional training and orientation costs, reduced profit, and loss of competitive advantage, as well as damage to image and reputation.

As a candidate, taking a personality test now will forewarn you to what an employer or recruitment agency will learn about you when you take a psychometric test for them. Reading your own psychometric report is a big help when writing your CV as well as when you are preparing for an interview. If an applicant goes into an interview fully aware of their own faults and prepared to defend them, describe your personality and present their strengths, then the applicant is at a great advantage.

You are here: Describe Your Personality

Now go to: Personality Tests for some examples. These are structured systematic ways of evaluating how people perform on tasks or react to different situations. They all have standardized methods of administration and scoring so that the results may be quantified and compared with how others have done under the same conditions on the same tests (norm groups). Careers Questionnaire are increasingly administered on a computer.

You should also read Self Introduction and get some further thoughts together; it is about how you introduce yourself and is something you must work on once you have been invited to an interview. You must get ready to create the image of someone they will definitely want to hire above all other job applicants. You need to be able to describe your personality but, you also need a brilliant CV to get you there, so make sure you read up on these CV Action Words to put some real power into your CV.

Return To Your Career Change Home Page

---

Looking for other ways to describe your personality?

An answer to an interview question? A CV or Resume layout? How to start Networking? More free Cover letter examples, or some ideas of your options?

Just enter your keyword in the search box below to find your answer on this site or anywhere else on the web. You will see some adverts that may be of interest since Google targets ads to your particular interests, but your results will be below that.