Job titling psychology. Yes. The way a job is titled can have a significant impact on the perceived authority, level of responsibility, and status associated with a job. This is why, when recruiting, you do not simply hire a garbage collector, but instead you hire a sanitation engineer. Instead of hiring a receptionist, you are looking to place a director of first impressions.
And rather than look for a customer service representative, you want to place a head of customer delight, and so on.
One way to attract really great talent is to have a job title that appeals to the likely personality type match to that job category. Here's how you can do that with ChatGPT. Check out this prompt. I am hiring a bartender. Think like a recruiter and a marketer. Give me 10 alternative job titles that would be appealing to someone with an ESFP personality type. Why ESFP, you may be wondering. Well, that's because, traditionally, someone with that personality has a compatibility with that particular job. So there you go.
ChatGPT responds that it is happy to help, so nice, and he gives me some creative alternatives as well as reasons why they would resonate with that personality. Interesting. It's as if ChatGPT remembered my asking for validation of his answers in the past, anticipated that I may ask it for validation again, so it went ahead and gave me the information up front. Hmm. Very clever, ChatGPT. Anyways, I like some of the alternative titles, some more than others. Let's see here, mixologist extraordinaire. I like. Beverage artist. Booze blender. Booze blender. Sound like they pour drinks at a frat, a fraternity house. And drink whisperer.
In fact, you know what? I was so amused by these job titles when I first saw them that I went over to Indeed... Let me go over there now and show you. I went over to Indeed to see if there were actually companies out there using these type of job titles, and to my surprise, I found out that some were.
For example, here Marriott International was looking for a mixologist. Olive Hotels was looking for a memory maker. That could have several meanings, but yeah. Okay, Pilot Company here was seeking a Subway sandwich artist. And Boompy's... Boompy's. Huh. Okay. And Boompy's Donut and Ice Cream Shop was seeking a donut artist. Why am I so hungry all of a sudden? But I digress. I digress.
I want to now show you a longer prompt I use for hiring a bartender in New York City. Longer prompts, I've found, are best because the more detail your request, the better results you tend to get. So that's a pro tip there for you. All right, let's take a look at my very long prompt. Here it is. "I am hiring a bartender for my club in NYC. I want you to write a job description that appeals to the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator personality of ESFP.
I also want you to list 15 interview questions that will help me verify that the candidate I interview has such traits. Include questions that would dissuade them from accepting the role because it goes against the ESFP personality type. Identify which questions are discouraging. By including discouraging questions, I want to ensure that the person I hire truly wants the job. Do not mention ESFP in the job description. The person I want to hire should have at least five years of experience."
Now, the job description here, the responsibilities here, and the qualifications are pretty much all what I expected. Good job, ChatGPT, as per usual. Now, the interview questions were pretty standard as well. "Can you tell me about a time when you went above and beyond to provide exceptional customer service? How do you keep yourself updated with the latest trends in mixology? How do you handle a difficult customer," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I especially liked its discouraging questions, because ESFP personality types tend to be fun-loving with short attention spans, and asking someone with this personality type if they can handle working in a high-pressure environment and if they are comfortable working alone for long periods of time will help me weed out someone who has enough of a personality to excel in one aspect of the job, but maybe not so much in other parts of the work. So there's that.
All right, next prompt. Here is another long prompt, says here, "We are pausing hiring for the bartender role, but I want to keep the candidate excited about the possibility of joining the company because we might want to hire them next month. Write an email informing them that we are pausing hiring, but we'll start again in the near future. Make it engaging to an ESFP personality." And this is what it gave me in return: "Dear candidate name, I hope this email finds you doing well. I wanted to reach out and provide you with an update regarding the bartender position at our high-end club in New York City.
At this time, we are pausing our hiring efforts, but I wanted to let you know that we are still very interested in your candidacy and your exceptional skills as a bartender. We were truly impressed with your outgoing and friendly personality, passion for mixology, and exceptional customer service skills. We believe that you would be an excellent addition to our team, and we are excited about the possibility of working with you in the future.
"While we are pausing our hiring efforts for now, we anticipate reopening a position very soon, and we would like to keep your application on file. We will reach out to you as soon as we are ready to proceed with our hiring efforts. In the meantime, please feel free to keep in touch with us and let us know how you are doing. We believe that building strong relationships with our candidates is essential and we look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you for your interest in our company and your exceptional candidacy. We will be in touch very soon. Warm regards, [foreign language 00:07:05]" Well, your name. In this case [foreign language 00:07:10] me. "P.S. We love your innovative cocktail recipes and can't wait to try them out with our customers." Love it, love it, love it, which is why I read the whole thing. Just sort of got into it. Forgive me. But, so, no complaints about the email.
So after this, I asked ChatGPT to write a rejection email that would be appreciated by someone with the ESFP personality. And it did, as you can see here. No, I'm not going to read it all. But as before, I was pretty pleased with it. But I wanted a bit of validation, just a little bit to quell the paranoia inside of me. So I asked it, "Why does this email appeal to that personality type? Break down the email and explain it to me." And ChatGPT, once again, impressed me by pointing out that the email worked because it was empathetic, personalized, and positive. It then elaborated on each point.
For example, regarding empathy, it said, "The email starts by expressing gratitude for the candidate's application and interview. This shows that the company values the time and effort that the candidate put into the application process. This acknowledgement is particularly important for ESFPs who tend to seek recognition and validation for their hard work." Wow. I mean, just... Wow.
That's it for now. Until next time, I'm Jim Stroud, your corporate trainer. I don't like that. Can we do that again? Let's put some psychology behind it.
That's it for now. Until next time, I'm Jim Stroud, your human capital development master. Your corporate learning architect. Your education and development maestro.
