The internal locus of control is important to predict objective and subjective career success and job performances and it is a trait where effort plays a major role in contributing to success with no exception even in adverse situations. The self- monitoring trait is where person-environment fit, job performances and both objective and subjective career success play significance. It is the readiness to change one's self for the betterment and adapt to new changes. Individual who are high self monitors can adapt with many different conditions and environments wherelse individuals who are low self monitors refuse to changes and stay as they are before despite social expectations ( Kilduff and Day, 1994). The self-esteem is refering to how people assess and judge themselves and their abilities. Individuals with high self esteem trust that they are able to adapt with different conditions and have the capability of handling different tasks given to them compared to individuals with low self esteem ( Brockner, 1988; Turban and Dougherty, 1994). On the contrary to pessimism, the optimism trait is where individuals have a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome with a positive mind ( Levin and Stokes, 1989; Turban and Dougherty, 1994; Watson and Clark, 1984 ).
Optimism is also important to determine the job performance and subjective and objective careers success. Machiavellianism refers to the trait characterized by expediency, deceit, and cunning where an individual manages to influence others skillfully especially in an unfair manner for personal success and gains by disregarding other people's interest (Wilson et al, 1996). An individuals work performance and success in career is including influencing people and power struggling, so machiavellianism is important in predicting the job performance and objective and subjective career success. The person-environment fit effects the job performance positively and also plays a role on objective as well as subjective career success ( Bretz and Judge, 1994; Caldwell and O'Reilly, 1990).
There is more study and research done on the factors that contribute on the performance of a job rather than what outcome job performance brings out. There is limited research carried out on the effects of job performance on career advancement ( Noe, 1996; Penley et al.,1991; Verbeke, 1994). Control variables such as human capital, demographics such as gender, marital status and number of offspring are certain factors which are not mainly influential to this career success journal.
“Usefullness is a criteria for evaluating theory in an organizational behavior” according to some scholars and it also consists of solutions for worldly problems ( Brief and Dukerich, 1991). There is also some disagreement in practical value theories where it may restrain theory development process (Brief and Dukerich, 1991; Zald, 1993). In Bandura's criticism, he states that individuals carry certain traits which will influence their consistent behavior under different circumstances and there is obstruction of the traditional viewpoint by the mechanistic models of an earlier period of personality development.
Based on the practical implications, the conservative point of view states that there is very limited studies done on personality and its effect on career success. Despite research was carried out saying that personality traits play a significant role on the development of career success, people were not able to change their behaviour for career advancement. For individuals, personality alteration, changes and able to identify their strengths and weaknesses can help them in enhancing themselves and create a better career success (Bandura, 1997). Organizations are responsible in recruitment and promotion of employees and training to enhance skills of employees. Therefore, the human resource department plays a major role in this and can upgrade and improve their systems and strategies ( Aryee et al., 1994). Career consultants can deal with clients who are going through career related problems such as stagnation or transition in their careers and they can use the personality traits to guide them to a well defined path.
Based on the theoretical implications, the relationship between personality and environmental factors states that vocational satisfaction and achievement are dependent on these both and there is debate whether the sculptor or the sculpture is defining the personality of an individual. Family background, abilities, capabilities, values and etc is also relevant to carreer success based on the congruence approach. Based on the incongruent approach, people can still alter their attitude and behaviour and can learn new things to achieve career success ( Holland, 1973).
Analysis of the journal
I agree with the content of this journal about the effects of personality on career success because personality is a significant determinant of how people will do in their careers. “ Career success can be defined as the real or perceived achievements individuals have accumulated as a result of their work experiences ” (Judge,Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995). At the same time, luck and other factors such as privilege or inheritance may also influence career success in a way that would diminish the relationship with personality significantly. The five most commonly studied personality traits are extraversion, conscientiousness,agreeableness, openness to experience, and emotional stability. I agree with this journal as studies have found out that conscientiousness and extraversion are both positively related to career success, income, and occupational status. By contrast, emotional instability is associated with lower income and occupational status. The content of this journal states that personality leads individuals to possess certain jobs both through the process of attraction to the jobs of interest as well as by leading organizations to select certain individuals. Personality has been related to career success, so it makes sense that employers might well prefer certain types of individuals based on their impressions of who will do best on the job. Personality also influences individual performance in their career in a way that will lead to higher compensation, new job responsibilities and promotions into higher organizational ranks. Other than that I agree because personality influences the ways in which individuals engage in social interactions at work. Social interactions can lead to any number of outcomes, ranging from improved knowledge in the career and role to more visibility in the organization. This would indirectly lead to job satisfaction from the success in one's career and personality can influence what you want as well as what you can get. Furhermore, personality might influence an individual's career choice by interview success because of the behaviors associated with different personality traits. An increasing number of studies have suggested that impression management is an important component of interview success and how well you peform in an interview to secure a job. In my opinion, the effects of personality on career success shows that individuals with superior positions in social networks are able to achieve superior work outcomes including access to information, access to resources, and career sponsorship . This study showed that career success was greater among individuals who have a social network compared to individuals who otherwise have little contact (Seibert, Kraimer, & Liden, 2001).
In addition, management researchers have become increasingly aware of the importance of personality in shaping orientations toward work and career (McCrae and Costa 1997). Personality has long been viewed as an important determinant of career choice though increasingly researchers are recognizing that personality also affects work-role functioning. I agree with the fact that personality traits have functional value for individuals in solving problems and represent individual differences in the qualities or resources individuals can draw upon to solve adaptive problems. An emotionally stable person may rely on steadiness of nerves, inner resilience and the capacity to rally from setback which allows the person to focus on career demands without performance being impaired by anxiety, worrying, loss of energy and etc. Similar examples can be formulated to show how different personality traits are involved in successful career performance and such outcomes as job satisfaction and career success. Moreover, personality traits facilitate successful job performance and positive career outcomes and it is related to career satisfaction. People's personalities obviously have an impact on many things that they do but how profound the effect of personality is on career success depends of course on the unique facets of an individual's personality. It also has a great impact on overall productivity in a social workplace. Cognitive ability however has been shown to be more positively correlated to actual task performance. From this fact, I agree that personality comes into play because if one is unwilling to perform the task and lacks conscientiousness, then the job will not get done regardless of potential ability. As a conclusion, I believe that all the personality traits mentioned in this journal play a prominent role in determining a person's career success and fulfilling their needs for achievement and power. Organizations and individuals can use these personality traits as a guidance for corporate ladder success.
REFERENCES
1) John W. Boudreau, Wendy R. Boswell & Timothy A. Judge , 1999 , Effects of Personality on Executive Career Success in the U.S and Europe , viewed on 20th February 2011,
3) Mandy M. Shell & Sheila D. Duncan , 2000 , The Effects of Personality Similarity between Supervisors and Subordinates on Job Satisfaction , viewed on 21st February 2011,
4) John W. Lounsbury, Robert P. Steel, Lucy W. Gibson , 2008 , Personality Traits and Career Satisfaction of Human Resource Professionals , viewed on 23rd February 2011,
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