Career management strategies: the role of personality

Using instrumentation grounded in the “Big Five” theoretical framework, this paper empirically examines personality as a predictor of career strategy behavior. Results support expectations that some aspects of personality (e.g. being extroverted or sociable) are associated with greater use of strategies involving relationships with others (e.g. seeking mentoring relationships). Other results indicate an association between personality dimensions (e.g. “openness to experience” or “intellectance”) and more self‐directed career strategies (e.g. developing skill/career flexibility). Implications of these results and directions for future study are discussed.