Big Five Traits and Intrinsic Success in the New Career Era: A 15‐Year Longitudinal Study on Employability and Work–Family Conflict

Abstract

The present investigation contributes to research on the dispositional source of intrinsic (subjective) career success in three general ways. First, two indicators of career success were considered, i.e. perceived employability and work–family conflict, which closely align with the characteristics of contemporary boundaryless careers. Second, facet‐level associations were examined, providing a more fine‐grained description of personality–success relations. Third, besides concurrent associations, we also examined the prospective effects of traits on career success assessed 15 years later. Overall, our results further substantiated an individual difference perspective on career success, with both outcomes being significantly and substantially predicted by Big Five traits, even when controlling for a number of demographic and career‐related characteristics. Further, results indicated that facet‐level analyses can contribute significantly to our theoretical understanding of trait–success associations. Finally, a comparison of concurrent and longitudinal analyses indicated temporal stability of personality–success relations, although the predictive validity of separate traits was also found to vary across time.