Employers' Demand for Personality Traits

Vera Brenčič () and Andrew McGee
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Vera Brenčič: University of Alberta

No 16083, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We measure firms' demand for workers' personality traits expressed in job ads and find that firms primarily demand workers who are extroverted, conscientious, and open-to-experience. The personality demand measures are correlated with the soft skills required on the job and produce intuitively plausible rankings of occupations in terms of personality requirements. Consistent with firms needing more time to fill vacancies with more requirements, ads requiring extroversion and conscientiousness remain posted online longer. Using the personality demand measures and wage information in the ads, we show theoretically and empirically that firms seeking conscientious workers are less likely to offer incentive pay.

Keywords: personality; job ads; method of pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 J23 J24 J33 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-hrm, nep-lma, nep-ltv and nep-neu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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