The Public Sector Personality: The Effects of Personality on Public Sector Interest for Men and Women

An important factor in vocational choice is whether to pursue a career in the public sector or the private sector. The perception of each sector impacts career choice, attracting individuals with certain traits. This perception-based attraction is important for public sector managers to understand what the ramifications of their branding are on recruitment, and whether it is impacting their workforce or ability to attract appropriate talent. Despite this importance, existing literature is very limited and presents contradictory findings. The present study investigated the impact of the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) on interest in public sector employment generally, as well as separately for all three levels of government (local, provincial, and federal), for men and women enrolled in a first-year management program. Extraversion was negatively related to an interest in the public sector for all three levels of government. Men and women did not differ significantly in their level of attraction to the public sector, and no statistically significant differences in personality-based interest were found between the three levels of government. An exploratory analysis of general interest in each level of government found that interest in the federal government was significantly higher than the municipal and provincial governments, although still low for all three levels of government. These results indicate potential challenges for public sector managers to attract candidates for highly social roles requiring an extraverted character.