Career choices are among the most important decisions we ever make. They matter for our identity and reputation, the people we are surrounded by, and, of course, material well-being.
Many factors contribute to what job we end up doing. Some are serendipitous — a chance encounter with a job opportunity, what happens to be available in the area, or a recommendation by someone else. Other reasons may be more systematic and predictable, stemming from people themselves. These may include our cognitive skills, interests, and personality traits. For example, assessing people’s interests and personality traits for job counseling, hiring, and coaching is among the most practical applications of psychological science — and a big business too.
However, there has been little systematic research into how jobs differ in typical personality trait levels. Most studies have compared only a few occupations, whereas few have attempted to map a broader range of jobs. This is surprising because there are few more practical questions in personality research than helping people to make informed decisions when they face one of their most important choices.
If we want to help people find jobs that match their personality traits, then we should know which traits are most common in the hundreds of jobs that people could possibly hold. Usually, people already doing a job — especially if they have been on the job for a while — are a good guide to what traits are expected on the job.
The Largest Study Yet
Research into occupational differences requires massive samples because there are hundreds of jobs and each needs to be well represented.
To achieve this, a recent study involved nearly 70,000 Estonian adults covering 263 occupations, with each job represented by at least 25 people and most represented by many more.
Each participant completed a comprehensive questionnaire about their personality traits. Moreover, many participants’ traits were also rated by a close other, such as their partner or a good friend, making the results more robust.
The Big Five
Differences between occupations were larger in some traits than in others. Of the Big Five personality traits, jobs tended to differ most in openness — curiosity, adventurousness, creativity, being unconventional — and extraversion. In contrast, agreeableness — being kind, honest, and humble — differed the least between jobs.
Expectedly, creative jobs such as artists, writers, researchers, and designers tended to attract people with the highest average openness levels. Psychologists and journalists also tended to be highly open.
Intuitively, jobs with the highest average extraversion levels included PR managers, actors, event organisers, and fitness coaches. In contrast, engineers and various software developers tended to be the least extroverted.
While also high in extraversion, many types of managers tended to score high on conscientiousness and low on neuroticism. Again, this is intuitive, since management jobs usually require being organised and tolerating stress, among other conscientiousness and neuroticism manifestations.
In agreeableness, salespeople, real estate agents, and self-employed tended to score the lowest. Expectedly, the occupations with the highest average agreeableness involved religion, psychology, and health care.
Finally, the professions with the most neurotic people included actors, journalists and various other creative professions. Besides managers, pilots also tended to score low in neuroticism. (Phew.)
Other Traits
The study also looked at some more specific personality traits, such as competitiveness, ease of decision-making, and ability to influence others.
Expectedly, various managers and legal professionals tended to be among the most competitive. Perhaps as intuitively, judges, pilots, and senior government officials were among those most comfortable making decisions. Likewise, HR managers and psychologists tended to be among the most confident in their ability to influence others.
Personality Essential Reads
While psychologists tended to have similar trait levels to religious workers, they differed in one trait. Psychologists tended to be liberal, but religious workers were among the least liberal, alongside lorry divers and various machine operators.
But there were also some less intuitive findings. For example, the jobs where people scored the highest in the desire to be in charge included childcare and education managers. Or are you not surprised?
Which Jobs Match Your Traits?
Now, you may be asking: which jobs match my personality traits? And which jobs don’t match my traits that well? You can find out in about five minutes; the authors developed a web application that allows you to see which of these 263 jobs tend to have incumbents the most and least similar to you.
However, it is crucial to remember that while jobs differ in average personality trait levels, there is a lot of variability within any given job.
That is, there are many reasons that can make a job more or less suitable for any given person, and having job-typical personality traits is only one part of the puzzle.
So, having trait levels that are not typical to a job — maybe even to your current job — does not mean you are not a good fit for the job.