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✓ 10 QUESTIONS ⏱ ~2 MINUTES

How Big 5 Personality Traits Affect Your Career

The traits known as the Big 5—agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience, and neuroticism—can have a powerful effect on the careers we choose and whether we succeed in them. Do you know how personality plays out on the job? Test yourself here.

1. Finding a new job tends to be easiest for individuals who score highly on which two Big 5 traits?

Agreeableness and openness Conscientiousness and extraversion Openness and neuroticism Extraversion and agreeableness

2. Which Big 5 trait is the strongest overall predictor of career success and job performance?

Extraversion Neuroticism Conscientiousness Agreeableness

3. Having a strong vocational identity—a clear understanding of your goals, interests, and abilities—is considered essential to career success. Which Big 5 trait is not predictive of a strong vocational identity?

Neuroticism Openness Extraversion Agreeableness

4. Extraversion is most closely associated with an interest in which types of careers?

Investigative (example: medical researcher, software developer) Artistic (example: photographer, actor) Conventional (example: accountant, office manager) Enterprising (example: entrepreneur, politician)

5. Extraverts tend to have a major advantage at work, outscoring introverts in numerous domains ranging from motivation to performance. Which facet of extraversion confers the greatest benefits?

Sociability Positive emotions Assertiveness Sensation-seeking

6. Conversely, which sub-facet of extraversion is least beneficial in the workplace?

Sociability Positive emotions Assertiveness Sensation-seeking

7. Personality can influence career trajectory—and career trajectory, in turn, can influence personality. Someone who attained a more prestigious job, for example, might see increased levels of which trait?

Agreeableness Neuroticism Openness Extraversion

8. That same study found that openness also increased as income increased. How else might securing a larger income change someone’s personality?

Decrease neuroticism Increase extraversion Decrease agreeableness Increase conscientiousness

9. Surgeons are known for being more narcissistic than other doctors and the general population alike. How else do surgeons’ personalities typically differ from non-surgeons?

Surgeons tend to be more open to new experiences. Surgeons tend to be more conscientious. Surgeons tend to be more neurotic. Surgeons tend to be more agreeable.

10. Certain personality traits may put someone at greater risk of burnout. High levels of which Big 5 trait are most predictive of burnout?

Agreeableness Openness Extraversion Neuroticism