Career success is full of inequalities. We don’t all start at the same place, and we don’t all end up at the same place. Some climb the corporate ladder and attain significant wealth, while others struggle to make ends meet in jobs with nearly unlivable wages. So what determines who gains career success and who does not?

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Rong Su, PhD, associate professor of management and entrepreneurship and Mahoney Fellow at the University of Iowa, about career successes and inequalities.

Rong is an organisational psychologist who studies individual differences that predict people’s job performance, satisfaction, and success. She discusses individual differences across five factors: (1) career interests, (2) gender, (3) socioeconomic status, (4) personality, and (5) intelligence.

Career Interests

Career interests are the preferences people have for different work activities, occupational fields, or environments. “Interest is a huge driver for people’s career choices,” Rong said. People tend to be attracted to jobs that overlap with their interests. Investigative, social, enterprising, and artistic are all categories of career interest.

Interests are a predictor of income and occupational prestige. Different careers have different levels of income, so interests do affect earnings. Interests drive choices within a career toward different activities, such as research or administration. They also serve as a source of intrinsic motivation that drives performance. “The fit between a person’s interest and their job predicts their level of performance,” Rong said.

For instance, engineers tend to have realistic interests, which include manipulating objects, doing hands-on activities, and solving problems with programming. Enjoyment of this work is likely to create a top performer. “Top individual contributors as an IT professional or as an engineer tend to be promoted to management,” Rong pointed out. “Transitioning from a things-oriented job to a people-oriented job that requires a lot of leading and influencing others creates a misfit and takes some adjustment.”

Gender

Gender roles affect what types of interests some people may have. “Men tend to gravitate towards things-oriented careers on average, and women tend to gravitate towards people-oriented careers on average,” Rong said. On the other hand, the enterprising interest dimension was historically male dominated but now shows no gender difference. (Data for these meta-analyses mainly came from North America within the last several decades.)

What causes these differences in interest across gender? Rong referenced Linda Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription and compromise.¹ The theory suggests that people may restrict their interests within the social, racial, and cultural norms of gender roles. Gender is likely an important factor in how people view what is and isn’t an acceptable interest.

Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic status (SES) has a strong influence on career success. “People from higher [socioeconomic] backgrounds do tend to have an advantage in terms of their grades, educational attainment, and career outcomes,” Rong said. SES affects career interests, which affect career choices.

Imagine a scenario in which two girls both have a things-oriented career interest. Now suppose the girls are exposed to different experiences based on socioeconomic status. One girl might visit science and technology museums and become a materials engineer. The other girl might spend time at the family auto body shop after school and become an automotive technician. Early experiences like these shape the work activities people might perform in adulthood.

“How do we cultivate interests so that we help individuals know what careers are possible?” Rong asked. Overcoming socioeconomic barriers involves early intervention. Role models and exposure to different activities help to spark and reinforce career interest across social classes.

Personality

Of course, personality also impacts career success. “Personality matters for job performance,” Rong said. One personality trait on the five-factor model that especially affects performance is conscientiousness. Having high conscientiousness—for instance, a high score on the Hogan Personality Inventory‘s Prudence scale—relates to being hardworking, reliable, organised, and compliant. The other factors also relate to performance, depending on the requirements of the job.

Personality is an important factor in emergent leadership and effective leadership. An emergent leader tends to seem charismatic, seek leadership roles, and be viewed as leaderlike. An effective leader builds and maintains a high-performing team, accomplishing work by means of team performance. Personality, along with career interest, can predict who is likely to gain a leadership role and who is likely to lead effectively.

Intelligence

Comparing intelligence, personality, and interest in predicting various career and educational outcomes, Rong found that intelligence tends to be the most influential factor. It helps predict academic performance, educational attainment, occupational prestige, and even income.

What are the implications in individual differences in intelligence for people of different socioeconomic statuses? There could be three possibilities: (1) Each of these factors could have an independent effect. Interest, gender, SES, personality, and intelligence would not really affect each other. (2) The factors could have a collective or cumulative effect. Intelligence and socioeconomic status, for example, would build on each other. (3) The factors could have an effect based on the resource substitution hypothesis. Intelligence and personality could substitute for or help people catch up from a lower socioeconomic status.

“For the most part, we have found support for the independent effect,” Rong said.² “Individual differences contribute to individuals’ future careers independently. The advantage of SES is always going to be there. Being intelligent and having desirable personality traits like consciousness also give people an advantage. But in some areas, we did find support for the resource substitution effect. For income, conscientiousness and intelligence help people catch up.”

Minimising Inequalities in Career Success

Recognising that these five dimensions may independently contribute to career success can foster a hopeful outlook. If personality and interest outweigh SES, for instance, then efforts such as early educational exposure to different activities may have a big impact. Introducing children to different occupational fields to show what careers are accessible to them is an intervention that truly matters. “We may never eliminate all the inequalities, but the key factor for changing or reducing the gaps is to help people view the world differently and show people what’s possible,” Rong said.

As for minimising inequalities in career success, adverse impact is possible for certain groups when selection and admission decisions use cognitive tests. Rong suggested incorporating noncognitive evaluations—for example, using an interest assessment or personality assessment—to help reduce the likelihood of adverse impact and increase diversity.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 104 of The Science of Personality.

*This post originally appeared on Hogan Assessments