Connecting Personality Traits to Career Interests Among Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Hazalizah Hamzah

Abstract


Employers are progressively utilising personality assessments as a screening tool, as they influence marketability. Malaysian graduates currently lack alignment between graduates’ qualifications and the skills required by employers, which is often rooted in a disconnect between their personality traits and career interests, further hindering their career progression. Thus, this study identified the predictors of six dimensions of career interests from five dimensions of personality traits. A total of 338 Malaysian undergraduates completed the NEO-IPIP-120 and the RIASEC Inventory. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness reported significant predictors for all RIASEC interests. Specifically, Extraversion has a positive and largest relationship with all career interest dimensions, while Neuroticism reported a non-significant association with most dimensions, except for Enterprising. Meanwhile, Agreeableness and Openness reported a negative and positive relationship with all dimensions, respectively. Lastly, Conscientiousness reported no significant relationship with Realistic and Enterprising career interests.  The findings of this study can be directed to employers and Human Resource personnel on implementing personality assessments for specific work positions to ensure alignment between both personality and career interest which may boost accuracy in recruiting the most suitable candidate and reduce long-term turnover rate.


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