Conscientiousness Predicts Job Performance Across Occupations

## Summary Barrick and Mount (1991) conducted a landmark meta-analysis examining the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and job performance across five occupational groups: professionals, police, managers, sales, and skilled/semi-skilled workers. ## Key Findings - **Conscientiousness showed consistent validity** in predicting job performance across all five occupational groups (mean corrected validity = .23) - Extraversion was a valid predictor specifically for sales and management roles - Openness to Experience predicted trainability across all groups - Agreeableness and Neuroticism showed limited predictive validity for performance overall ## Why This Matters This study established Conscientiousness as the "gold standard" non-cognitive predictor of workplace success, a finding that has been replicated across hundreds of subsequent studies. It provides the scientific foundation for Cogniself's Screening and Professional Growth reports. ## Methodology - 117 studies reviewed - N = 23,994 employees - Corrected for range restriction and measurement error - Multi-occupational validity generalization ## Primary Source Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. _Personnel Psychology_, 44(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x