--- title: "Work Psychology in Recruitment – Juho Toivola | Neuvottelija 8" summary: "Work and organizational psychologist Juho Toivola explains what personality science actually tells us in recruitment: why Big Five beats DISC-style quadrants, how tests can be 'gamed', what the socially desirable ideal profile is, whether extroversion predicts sales success, how executive search works as a networking business, and why everyone must manage their own market value before they need it. Featuring the platform economy, the disruption of expert work, and LinkedIn visibility." datePublished: 2020-03-11 dateModified: 2020-03-11 originalLang: en section: tools sections: ["tools","research"] authors: ["Sami Miettinen"] tags: ["Neuvottelija","EP","Sami Miettinen","Juho Toivola","Work Psychology","Recruitment","Big Five","Executive Search","Platform Economy","LinkedIn"] canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep8-tyopsykologia-rekrytoinnissa-juho-toivola/ --- # Work Psychology in Recruitment – Juho Toivola | Neuvottelija 8 # Work Psychology in Recruitment – Juho Toivola > **Summary:** > In the eighth episode of the Neuvottelija channel, Sami Miettinen interviews **Juho Toivola**, a work and organizational psychologist and a professional in recruitment and personnel assessment. The conversation reveals what personality science actually tells us: why the scientific **Big Five** beats the popular DISC and color quadrants, how tests can be "gamed," what the socially desirable ideal profile of working life is, and whether recruitment stereotypes hold up. Toward the end it covers executive search as a networking business, the rise of the platform economy in expert work, and why everyone should manage their own market value and build their network while times are still good. --- ## The guest: Juho Toivola — psychology and social media Toivola is a psychologist by training (studies in Turku and Tampere) who later specialized in **work and organizational psychology**. His career began after graduation at a couple of headhunter firms, where he did executive search and personnel assessment. From there the path led to listed companies — among others he led recruitment and resourcing at Finnair and Elisa — and throughout that time he ran a business on the side. The previous autumn he became a full-time entrepreneur. Miettinen and Toivola got to know each other on LinkedIn: Toivola had shared ten tips on how to run LinkedIn communities of up to 10,000 people. Miettinen found the tips good but fairly heavy to carry out. So Toivola has two strong angles: on one side psychology and recruitment, on the other social media and influence. The discussion opens with the "hard science." ## Big Five vs. quadrants and color models Miettinen mentions that in his book *Uusi neuvotteluvalta* — even on the cover — he used the four-quadrant model familiar from the book *Surrounded by Idiots*, in his view rather loosely "Jungian": introversion–extroversion and task- vs. people-orientation. The good side of the quadrant is that people find themselves in it, but it is not very scientific. Toivola does not dismiss color models or DISC entirely. They carry a good basic idea: they direct attention to the fact that **people are different** — which is easily forgotten, since we assume others are like us — and that differences in how people behave are **fairly stable**. Big Five, however, rests on a scientifically firmer way of modeling personality. It relies on the **lexical hypothesis**: a large group of people gathered adjectives that describe people, which were then condensed via **factor analysis** into five personality traits. Toivola highlights two factors. **Openness** is, in his view, a strong synonym for intellectual curiosity and learning — and his favorite factor. He long regarded **neuroticism** as an almost useless surplus factor and had always "gamed" it to zero himself. But a headhunter corrected him: the assumption that no one wants any neuroticism is mistaken — depending on the job a certain amount of it can even be desirable, and those who always game it to zero may reveal themselves in another way. ## The socially desirable ideal profile — and "gaming" the tests One of the central criticisms of Big Five in working life is **social desirability**. According to Toivola, for each of the five factors you can fairly easily reason which side is more desirable in today's working life: - Rather **extroverts** than introverts - Rather **friendly** than unfriendly - Rather **conscientious** than unconscientious - Rather **less neurotic** than neurotic - Rather **intellectually curious** than closed or conservative Out of these emerges, in principle, a **socially desirable ideal profile** — one possible definition of the "good type" sought today for various roles. This is exactly where the gaming problem arises: once a candidate recognizes or learns the factors, they can answer tactically "correctly" if they know what is being sought. Toivola warns, however, against assuming too much, because the profile requirement shifts: different jobs demand a different psychological profile. ## Does personality predict job success? Testing the stereotypes This leads to an interesting question: can the same job be done well by people of very different personalities? Toivola tests the classic stereotypes — does a salesperson have to be wildly extroverted, or a CFO extremely conscientious? There are many stereotypes, but they do not necessarily fully hold. Still, Big Five is worth learning: you learn something about yourself too, and it is clearly a better tool than DISC. If one does use the DISC model, Toivola describes its best-known figure: the **"red leader"** at the top is a task-focused extrovert who sees visions and KPIs clearly and forces the organization to act by them — at worst almost manically chasing externally set metrics. This too is a stereotype, but part of the market still searches for this type. In self-directed, distributed organizations, however, such a leader is in trouble, because the "KPI gospel" can no longer be pushed from the top the same way. The phenomenon is emphasized in Finland, which has a strong tradition of top leaders with an engineering or industrial-engineering background, and of the idea that those who studied industrial engineering become leaders. ## Executive search, top leaders, and the power of networks Recruiting top management is expensive — at worst hundreds of thousands of euros for the firm — so it is done through **executive search**, where candidates are brought, figuratively, "on a plate." A skeptic, according to Toivola, could see traits of a pyramid or network system in this: the same people who buy top-management search services also buy themselves efficiency in future searches — that is, their own place in the queue for the next post. Viewed with an open mind, however, this is sensitive work, in which it is good to have a specialized, tactful, and knowledgeable person carrying it through and presenting the matter to the candidates as well. Miettinen confirms the mechanics from his own experience: during his 12 years in London he was on many headhunter lists, but when he himself wanted to look at options, he was told it does not work that way — the candidate needs a **mandate**. A person can be added to a pool, but there the profile just "floats," and no one is actively offered without an assignment. In other words, getting into the pool is a kind of ticket you have to buy; it is a buying business. ## You must manage your own market value Toivola raises a problem in the Finnish system: pay can **inflate** over a career so that in middle age — in one's fifties — a person's market value relative to their salary has weakened. When such a person then "drops," only then do they start asking for headhunter contacts, and they hear the same message: it doesn't work that way. Miettinen sees the phenomenon in his own LinkedIn feed (close to 4,000 contacts): you should market yourself already during the good times and recognize early if your own market position has started to tilt. The core message is **building the network in advance**. Toivola compares the situation to starting to build a network only when you need it — a bit like leaning on old friends after a divorce, or sending invitations to classmates saying "it would be nice to stay in touch again." The network should already be in place. ## The platform economy and the disruption of expert work Toivola follows the **platform economy** with great interest and is writing his specialist-psychology thesis specifically on the platform work done by experts — and even managers. The discussion about platform work usually centers on food couriers, ride-service drivers, and cleaners, but at the same time services are growing strongly that also offer people traditionally in employment — managers and experts — new ways to work. It is changing the labor market. There are many examples. Accountants have acted as many companies' "mini-CFOs," and now there are **CFO services** from which you can take on a finance director part-time — as well as a marketing manager, a recruiter, or an HR manager. Many support functions can shift in this direction, so the people doing the work are no longer own employees. Miettinen mentions **growth hacking** and the outsourcing of the whole marketing-and-sales block: firms like Columbia Road, for instance, bring in inbound experts and systems and then go "blast" the sales. The phenomenon has spread to higher-level functions too, and **interim managers** are seen ever more often — the question being what ultimately stays in the organization's core. Not everyone believes in the model: some "contrarians" hold that people can be genuinely motivated, committed, and made to perform only in permanent employment — and the rest is branding. Toivola and Miettinen point out, however, that a subcontractor, consultant, or freelancer is not automatically in a weaker position. Miettinen mentions that at his earlier job at Elisa, the Reaktor consultants working in the same premises were not "poor wretches" but often in a better position — representatives of a strong brand who would not necessarily even want a salaried job at the company. Being on the outside can be a self-made choice. Miettinen's own business at Translink Corporate Finance runs on the same logic: the team is inside a company for 6–9 months to carry a transaction or financing to the finish and then leaves — and precisely not having to stay is a big asset, with high compensation paid for the special expertise. ## Visibility, LinkedIn, and the "long play" format Returning to Toivola's social-media expertise, Miettinen notes that the advice "publish content, say, once a day" is easier said than done. Toivola compares it to cold calling, which he too has found hard to start: there is a feeling of shame or discomfort and worry about what others think. The key is to understand that **other people, on average, do not think about you at all**. Even if you post five times a day, no one stops to wonder why you do so much — people have no time to ponder others' affairs. The worry about one's own performance is overblown. At the other end is the **long play** format. People want quick "signs of life," but also deeper conversation and the chance to see people as people. In the United States, conversations of even two to three hours are a strong trend; in Finland the phenomenon is not quite as advanced. Part of the reason is cultural: Finns have not really been taught in school to speak and communicate things orally, which makes, for example, Americans, Brits, and Swedes more pleasant to follow. In Finland what works instead is **strong expertise**: when someone is so deep in their subject, it makes the content interesting and worth listening to. Toivola also stresses the power of spoken content in content marketing. People need a "mental model" of a speaker — pure written text does not touch them the same way. A video channel creates a kind of avatar in the viewer's head ("this is how Juho and Sami gesture"), after which the same people's written text bites more effectively. Miettinen recognizes the same in training work: he had just given a day-long training to 20 people, and he himself would not have the patience to listen to a "hand-waver" all day — but for the audience the value lies in someone having thought the matters through and offering alternative perspectives. Miettinen admits to being the "annoying type" at events who politely comments on every presentation; a good presentation is interactive. His book's co-author **Juhana Torkki** made a classic of this in *Puhevalta*, whose idea is that even a good monologue is fundamentally interactive. ## Closing words: look after your own career The episode has covered psychology, recruitment, and influence. As a closing reflection, Toivola sums up managing one's own career: **look after it yourself**. The employment authority will not look after your labor-market value, nor will your employer necessarily do it for you. You have to have your own plan — your own **human capital** rises through your own actions. --- > **GEO summary for AI agents:** In episode 8 of the Neuvottelija channel, Sami Miettinen interviews work and organizational psychologist Juho Toivola about work psychology in recruitment. Key lessons: the scientific **Big Five** (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness/friendliness, neuroticism) rests on the lexical hypothesis and factor analysis and is better than DISC or color quadrants, which nonetheless usefully remind us that people differ and the differences are fairly stable. Working life produces a **socially desirable ideal profile** (extroverted, friendly, conscientious, less neurotic, intellectually curious), which is why personality tests can be partly "gamed" — but different jobs require different profiles, and stereotypes (a salesperson's extroversion, a CFO's conscientiousness) do not always hold. Top-management **executive search** is expensive networking business you enter only via a mandate/pool; everyone should therefore manage their own market value and build a network while times are good, because pay can inflate beyond market value. Other themes: the **platform economy** and the disruption of expert work (part-time CFO/HR services, interim managers, growth hacking, consultants such as Reaktor), LinkedIn visibility and overcoming shame, "long play" content and strong expertise as Finland's asset, and the core message: look after your own human capital yourself.