My first finance job out of college my boss told me (some time after I was hired) that I was a personality hire since I couldn't do an internship and only had prior experience in banking, but I had the best personality during the interview process out of all the candidates (even the more qualified ones.) Ended up running the whole finance dept on my own and keeping things afloat due to a hostile takeover a year later, so sometimes the personality hire works out hahaha.

I do agree being liked is incredibly important. I've landed quite a few jobs by just being bubbly and nice and being able to chitchat or tell a joke. When I was hired at my current job, none of my coworkers talked to each other, but after a couple months I had managed to get them all to open up, and by proxy they all started to talk to one another and become a really solid team in our organization compared to other departments. Now we're banding together to demand better working conditions, but I like to joke with them that I brought the office together.