How Different Personality Traits Are Better in Different Jobs

Professors of business and psychology conducted metanalyses to determine how the link between personality traits and job performance varies depending on the job.

What to know:

• Past research has investigated how personality affects job performance overall, but a new study in the Journal of Vocational Behavior examines how that relationship differs across various kinds of jobs.

• Researchers evaluated how the Big Five personality traits, which are conscientiousness, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and neuroticism, affected job performance across nine occupation groups: clerical, customer service, healthcare, law enforcement, management, military, professional, sales, and skilled/semiskilled.

• The relationship between personality traits and job performance varied across the nine groups, especially in relation to occupational complexity.

• While conscientiousness predicted better performance in all jobs, its effect was seen to be greater in jobs requiring low or medium levels of cognitive demand. In healthcare jobs, the trait of agreeableness predicted better performance, while in sales and management jobs, extraversion appeared to be more important.

• The researchers hope the findings could lead to improved resources to help people choose the job that’s right for them.

This is a summary of the article, “Personality Traits Predict Performance Differently Across Different Jobs,” published by the University of Arkansas on December 13. The full article can be found on news.uark.edu.

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