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While personality trait assessments are widely used in candidate selection, coaching and occupational counseling, little published research has systematically compared occupations in personality traits. Using a comprehensive personality assessment, we mapped 263 occupations in the self-reported Big Five domains and various personality nuances in a sample of 68,540 individuals, cross-validating the findings in informant-ratings of 19,989 individuals. Controlling for age and gender, occupations accounted for 2% to 7% of the variance in Big Five domains and up to 12% in nuances. Most occupations’ average trait levels were intuitive, replicated in informant ratings, and were consistent with those previously obtained with a brief personality assessment in a different sociocultural context. They also meaningfully tracked O*NET’s work style ratings, and tended to cluster along the ISCO’s hierarchical framework, albeit with several (meaningful) exceptions. Finally, occupations with higher average levels of traits typically linked to better job performance tended to be more homogeneous in these traits, suggesting that jobs with higher-performing incumbents are often more selective for the traits. We provide an interactive application for exploring the results (https://apps.psych.ut.ee/JobProfiles/) and discuss the findings’ theoretical and practical implications. Test your personality traits in relation to these jobs: https://whichjob.me
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Anni et al. (2023) studied this question.