Personality, Interests, and Life Goals: Their Relative Importance for Predicting Early Career Outcomes

In recent years, there has been increased research attention on understanding how consequential life outcomes are predicted by personality traits and motivational variables, including vocational interests and life goals. Although personality traits, interests, and life goals have demonstrated predictive importance on their own, little is known about their relative importance for jointly predicting career and educational outcomes—especially over long time periods. The current study examined the relative importance of personality traits, vocational interests, and life goals measured in late adolescence for predicting three objective outcomes measured 12 years later: educational attainment, occupational prestige, and income. Overall, findings revealed that adolescent vocational interests were the strongest predictors of educational attainment and income in young adulthood. Adolescent personality traits were the strongest predictors of occupational prestige in young adulthood, although limiting generalizability, the specific traits that best predicted occupational prestige differed somewhat across samples. We also tested for potential interactions between 14 pairs of personality traits and interests/life goals in predicting career outcomes, but the results did not support any consistent interaction effects. Altogether, results highlight the importance of assessing personality, interests, and life goals in tandem to better understand and support young people’s future career success.