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Whether you’re just starting out in the workforce, pursuing a new career, or looking to secure a promotion, understanding and building your self-awareness of your unique character traits can help you progress in both your personal and professional life.
- Helen Oswald
- Overview
- What are character traits?
- 15 examples of character traits
- Why are character traits important in the workplace?
- Using character traits in your job search
- Highlighting character traits for career advancement
Your character traits represent your personality, morals, ethics and beliefs. Many employers can evaluate your qualifications for a position by determining your most prominent character traits. Knowing your best character traits can help you develop them further and use them to your advantage in your career, from writing an interesting resume or cover letter to requesting a promotion.In this article, we discuss character traits with a definition and a list of 15 examples of traits you can use in your career and resume.Key takeaways:
•Character traits are part of your behaviors, beliefs and personality that help others understand who you are personally and professionally.
•There are many character traits that you can develop, such as honesty, flexibility and curiosity.
•From writing your resume to earning a promotion, you can use your character traits to improve your career.
Character traits are individual parts of your personality and behavior that express who you are as a person. These aspects of your personality can tell a hiring manager how you work with others or handle tasks. Highlighting your best and most relevant character traits in your resume and interview can help you get hired and give potential employers ...
1. Ambitious
An ambitious person has a strong desire to achieve success by meeting their goals. You may show ambition when you apply hard work and dedication to overcome a challenge or exceed company objectives. Ambition may also mean taking on additional work or putting in extra effort to reach your desired outcome.Related: 26 Leadership Characteristics To Effectively Manage Teams
2. Creative
Someone creative can use their imagination to make or invent something. Creativity skills apply not only to artistic roles. It requires creativity to solve a difficult problem, present information in a clear, interesting way or find better ways to complete tasks.
3. Compassionate
A compassionate person can feel and express sympathy for others. You may display compassion when you help a colleague overcome a difficult challenge or provide emotional support to someone experiencing a challenging time. Employers desire candidates who show compassion in every role, but it can especially help those interested in customer service roles or client-facing positions.Related: Why Empathy in the Workplace Is Important
When you know your best character traits, you can work to strengthen them. This can help you in a multitude of ways, from advancing your career and achieving goals to developing relationships and growing your professional network. Character traits can also help you make decisions that align with your values. For example, you may identify yourself a...
Character traits in your resume
You can weave your character traits into your resume summary by including language such as:“4+ years of experience building creative solutions for an enterprise sales team.”Also, include them in your work experience descriptions. For example, you can include a bullet point that reads:“Maintained flexibility during company-wide restructure due to COVID-19 and implemented successful work from home processes under a tight deadline.”
Character traits in your cover letter
When writing a cover letter, display character traits that apply to the specific job listing. For instance, for a role in customer service, you can highlight a time you exercised patience and compassion. Try to identify the values, requirements and duties of the position or organization and emphasize the traits you have that align with the role.
Character traits in your interview
You can also benefit from working your best character traits into your responses to behavioral and situational interview questions such as “what are your greatest strengths?” or “tell me about a time when you overcame a challenge.” Remember, it's important to be specific when answering interview questions, so strive to share stories and experiences of times when you exhibited these traits in a professional setting.
When an employer can recognize your character traits, it gives them a better sense of your strengths. Your character traits can provide insight into how you can perform new job duties, communicate with peers, manage stress and handle high-pressure situations. For example, if an employer seeks to promote someone to a management position and you're interested in the opportunity, you may remind them of your perceptive, empathetic, motivational and strategic traits. These specific traits show that you can identify the needs of the team, understand their pain points, drive them to reach goals and determine the steps to achieve objectives.
Video: How To Create the Perfect Elevator Pitch - Plus ExamplesJenn, a certified career coach, helps you tell a compelling story about who you are and where you are going in under two minutes.
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- Dependable. One of the easiest characteristics to cultivate despite our virtual workspace is dependability. If you continue to meet deadlines, arrive at meetings on time, work cooperatively and respectfully, and submit work that is above average, you can easily cultivate a reliable persona in the office.
- Motivated + Strong Work Ethic. On the other side of the spectrum, motivation is one of the more difficult traits to exhibit on-screen. How do you *show* your self-motivation?
- Independent. Every workplace loves a team player, but independence shows courage and direction. Independent employees get work done without needing constant reminders from coworkers or check-ins with their manager.
- Creative. Not all office environments foster creativity, and not all jobs necessarily require it in their descriptions. Nevertheless, this is an important character trait to cultivate in the workplace.
- Nathan Falde
- Responsibility. A great employee is a responsible employee. The same goes for a great manager and a great entrepreneur. Responsibility is an indispensable personality trait in the workplace, where things won’t get done effectively or efficiently if people neglect their duties (or look the other way while others are neglecting theirs).
- Optimism. An optimistic person is someone who believes the best is yet to come. This personality trait can be infectious, which is why all employers feel fortunate when they find someone who is consistently and persistently optimistic.
- Resiliency. Resiliency is the perfect complement to optimism. The resilient person can be knocked down just like everyone else, but they won’t stay down for long.
- Flexibility. Employers prize flexibility and adaptability in their employees. People who can only handle a limited range of activities or responsibilities may still be valuable, if they can handle them well.
Jun 27, 2024 · In this article, we explore the Big Five Personality Traits model, explain what the big five are, explain how you can test your personality, and share how understanding your traits helps improve your career.
Aug 5, 2022 · 16 Positive Character Traits to Help You Succeed at Work. It takes a lot of hard work and determination to be successful at work, but that’s only part of the story. You also need strong, positive character traits like reliability, grit, resilience, and so many more.
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Mar 16, 2020 · Tolentino says personality influences behaviour and that characteristics such as confidence, optimism, self-regulation, discipline and even the ability to adjust to different social settings can affect your career advancement. And it’s not just a nature versus nurture situation.
