Enneagram Types: A Recruiter's Tool for Building Strong Teams

April 7, 2023
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Claire Stachniewska
Enneagram Types: A Recruiter's Tool for Building Strong Teams

‍In this article, we'll explore the Enneagram system, providing a deeper understanding of the nine distinct types and their relevance in the recruitment process. By the end of this article, you'll see how Enneagram types can help you identify the right candidates and create a more productive, harmonious work environment. So, if you're looking to build a stronger team, keep reading.

What are the Enneagram types?

Enneagram types provide insights into the behaviors, attitudes, and motivations of candidates and team members. This helps recruiters tailor their evaluation process and create a more productive and cohesive work environment. By understanding how team members interact, recruiters can identify areas of conflict and create strategies to resolve them, as well as identify areas where additional support or training is needed for improved productivity and effectiveness.

The nine types are:

  1. The Perfectionist: Responsible, detail-oriented, and self-critical.
  2. The Helper: Empathetic, supportive, and service-oriented.
  3. The Achiever: Ambitious, results-driven, and focused on success.
  4. The Individualist: Creative, sensitive, and introspective.
  5. The Investigator: Analytical, curious, and independent.
  6. The Loyalist: Trustworthy, responsible, and team-oriented.
  7. The Enthusiast: Fun-loving, optimistic, and adventurous.
  8. The Challenger: Confident, assertive, and protective.
  9. The Peacemaker: Diplomatic, easygoing, and conflict-averse.

To use Enneagram types effectively in the recruitment process, recruiters can use assessment tools that include Enneagram assessments as part of their evaluation process. At HiPeople, we offer an assessment library that covers everything that matters to you, and leave out the bits that don’t add value. By that, your candidates receive bite-sized, role-specific, enjoyable assessments.

Using Enneagram Types in Talent Acquisition

The Enneagram system is a powerful tool for talent acquisition, allowing recruiters to identify candidates' strengths and weaknesses, assess their suitability for a particular role, and create more diverse teams. By understanding how to identify Enneagram types, recruiters can make more informed decisions about which candidates are the best fit for their organization.

To identify Enneagram types, recruiters must first become familiar with the nine distinct types. Each type has unique characteristics, motivations, and behavior patterns that can be used to assess a candidate's fit for a particular role and team culture. Assessments that use Enneagram types can provide a more comprehensive understanding of a candidate's behavior and attitudes.

Assessing candidate suitability with Enneagram types enables recruiters to evaluate behavior and attitudes, identifying potential challenges and support needs. This approach informs decision-making for the best fit in roles and team culture.

Enneagram types also help reduce unconscious bias in talent acquisition. By focusing on behaviors and motivations instead of gender, race, or other factors, recruiters foster a more inclusive and diverse workplace, acknowledging each candidate's unique strengths and perspectives.

Enneagram Types and Team Building

Understanding Enneagram types can provide valuable insights into team dynamics and help build stronger, more cohesive teams. By identifying individual strengths and weaknesses, team members can better understand each other's motivations and work together more effectively.

Enneagram types also provide a framework for addressing communication challenges within teams. By recognizing how each team member communicates and processes information, teams can tailor their approach to better suit the needs of all members.

In addition, incorporating Enneagram types in team building can help promote diversity and inclusion. By understanding and appreciating different perspectives, teams can better collaborate and produce more innovative solutions.

At HiPeople, we offer Enneagram assessments as part of our team-building solutions. Our assessments are designed to help identify individual strengths and weaknesses and promote more effective communication and collaboration within teams. With our job-specific candidate assessments, you can find the candidates who fit the job the best. Our assessments are fast, easy, and bias-free.

Developing Employee Retention Strategies

Enneagram types are valuable for crafting employee retention strategies that address job satisfaction, burnout prevention, career development, and mentorship programs. By understanding each employee's type, managers can customize their approach to individual strengths, motivations, and communication styles.

They also help increase job satisfaction and engagement by designing work environments that align with employees' values and objectives. They also aid in mitigating burnout by identifying triggers and formulating preventive strategies.

Using Enneagram types, managers can tailor career development opportunities to each employee's unique motivations and strengths, enhancing engagement and retention. Additionally, Enneagram types optimize mentorship programs by pairing mentors and mentees based on complementary strengths and communication styles, fostering a supportive and collaborative work environment.

Enneagram Types and Leadership

Enneagram types offer valuable insights into leadership styles, allowing leaders to identify and address their blind spots while building more effective and diverse teams.

Understanding how Enneagram types inform leadership styles is crucial for leaders. Each of the nine Enneagram types exhibits a distinct leadership style, complete with unique strengths, motivations, and challenges. By recognizing their own Enneagram type, leaders can capitalize on their natural strengths and mitigate potential weaknesses, improving their overall effectiveness.

Identifying and addressing leadership blind spots is essential for leaders to avoid potential pitfalls. The Integrative Enneagram provides a framework for identifying these blind spots, helping leaders develop self-awareness and enhance their decision-making abilities. By recognizing and addressing their blind spots, leaders can create more inclusive and supportive work environments.

Utilizing Enneagram types promotes leadership diversity, enabling leaders to build effective teams with complementary strengths, communication styles, and problem-solving approaches. This diversity cultivates collaboration and innovation, enhancing team performance and driving organizational success.

Implementing Enneagram Types in Recruitment Processes

Incorporating Enneagram assessments in recruitment processes can significantly improve talent acquisition and team-building outcomes. By training recruiters on Enneagram types and following ethical considerations and best practices, organizations can streamline their hiring processes and build more cohesive teams.

Enneagram assessments enable organizations to identify candidates with the most suitable skills, motivations, and communication styles for a particular role. Training recruiters on Enneagram types ensure they can effectively evaluate candidates based on this valuable information.

Ethical considerations are essential when implementing Enneagram-based recruitment. Organizations must be transparent about the assessment's purpose and maintain candidate privacy while avoiding discriminatory practices.

Best practices for using Enneagram types in recruitment include incorporating them as part of a holistic assessment process, ensuring a balanced representation of types in the workplace, and considering team dynamics during hiring decisions.

Take the first step toward improving your recruitment process and building cohesive teams by incorporating Enneagram assessments today. Immediately spot candidates that best fit your job requirements and streamline your hiring process!