Do recruiters select workers with different personality traits for different tasks? A discrete choice experiment

Caroline Wehner, Andries de Grip and Harald Pfeifer

Labour Economics, 2022, vol. 78, issue C

Abstract: This paper explores whether firms recruit workers with different personality traits for different tasks. We conduct a discrete choice experiment among recruiters of 634 firms in Germany, asking recruiters to choose between job applicants who differ in seven characteristics: professional competence, the Big Five personality traits, and the prospective wage level. We find that all personality traits affect the hiring probability of the job applicant, with conscientiousness and agreeableness having the strongest positive effects. However, for analytical tasks, recruiters have a stronger preference for more open and conscientious applicants, while favoring more open, extraverted, and agreeable workers for interactive tasks.

Keywords: Recruitment; Personality traits; Tasks; Discrete choice experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 J23 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Do Recruiters Select Workers with Different Personality Traits for Different Tasks? A Discrete Choice Experiment (2020)
Working Paper: Do recruiters select workers with different personality traits for different tasks? A discrete choice experiment (2020)
Working Paper: Do recruiters select workers with different personality traits for different tasks? A discrete choice experiment (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:78:y:2022:i:c:s092753712200077x

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102186

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