Andy’s Quick Hits (159): Personality predicts job performance (kind of) depending on job groups

We know a thing or two about personality and job performance at leading brains and this research supports our data about how personality can predict, and especially not, job performance.

Wilmot and Ones of the University of Arkansas analysed the effects on performance across nine major occupational groups: clerical, customer service, healthcare, law enforcement, management, military, professional, sales, and skilled/semiskilled. They analysed data from 539 studies including 89’639 individuals.

The studies they analyed used the standard measure of personality of the “big five” which includes five broad personality traits. We at leading brains think this is far too simple to be accurate. And indeed, they found that in jobs with higher cognitive requirements i.e. in more complex jobs, personality was less predictive. And they also found that specificity of jobs was correlated to better or worse predictions. So, for example in healthcare jobs, where, you guessed right, caring is an important aspect, those who scored higher on agreeableness (being nice) were rated as better. No surprise there.

They also found that these predictions aligned very well with what experts in the respective fields thought would contribute to effectiveness in…