Job hunting is probably the type of experience we all have to face more than once in our life time. Intuitively we can think of the things that influence getting a job; we can blame our communicative skills, self-esteem, job skills, etc. We can also intuitively guess which of our characteristics will influence our job search behavior, while we can tell by our own experience what "post-feelings" occur after receiving a rejection.

So, why am I writing an article about job hunting, if we already know almost everything by experience? The reason is that there are some questions that we cannot answer intuitively, for example: What strategies do people use when hunting for jobs? How do these strategies affect getting a job faster? Which antecedents explain employment outcomes? And how do personality traits and foraging strategies affect our job search behavior?

A way to answer these questions is to address what experimental research has shown through results that go beyond “intuitive outcomes”. The following article will explain the results of multiple studies regarding psychological variables that affect job search behavior such as neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Such characteristics tap into individual differences found in foraging strategies when hunting for a job.

Job search behavior is the outcome of a dynamic, recursive, self-regulated process in which the individual must identify, initiate, and follow up written and social exchanges for the purpose of obtaining new employment or reemployment. As well, it is a purposive, volitional pattern of action that begins with the identification and commitment of pursuing an employment goal. During job search, people generally undertake an assortment of activities and use a variety of personal resources (e.g. time, effort, social resources) to obtain employment (Kanfer, Wanberg, & Kantrowitz, 2001).

Kanfer et al. (2001) posit in their meta-analysis a heuristic model of job search (Figure 1) based on recent advancements on personality and motivation theory. Specifically, they base their model on results from (1) the personality-performance domain that show the effects of dispositional tendencies on self-regulated job behaviors (e.g. Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993), (2) on the personality constructs drawn from theory and research on the five-factor model of personality – Big Five (Goldberg, 1990), and (3) on motivational constructs such as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1989) and employment attitudes (Feather, 1990).

Kanfer et al. (2001) identify six mayor complexes of nonability individual-difference variables that are likely to influence one or more of the constituent self-regulatory processes that in turn affect job search behavior. In sum, these complexes are:

(1) Personality traits, such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Personality operates on job search through the engagement of different search strategies and the decision to engage in proactive job search behaviors.
(2) Generalized expectancies and self-evaluations, which are related to locus of control and optimism and job search self-efficacy. Generalized expectancies with respect to agency and outcomes, respectively, have been suggested to relate to job search behavior and employment outcomes through their influence on both problem and emotion focused coping during the search process. The authors placed self-esteem and job search self-efficacy in the self-evaluation complex. Self-esteem pertains to an evaluation of self-worth; self-efficacy is typically concerned with self-evaluation specific to a task or class of tasks, in the case of job search.
(3) Situational antecedents, including motives and social variables. Many researchers have suggested the extent to which individuals engage and persist in self-directed job search behavior is likely to be influenced by their motives for obtaining employment and the extent to which their environment supports search activities. The two prominent motives are financial need and employment commitment.
(4) Biographical variables, including both history and demographic variables. The five main demographic variables are age, gender, education, race, and work-job tenure.

Also, Kanfer et al. (2001) identified three major employment consequences of self-regulated job search behavior. These are (1) Status, that is if the person is employed or not (2) Search duration, which refers to the length of time that the individual looked for a job, and (3) Number of job offers.

Kanfer et al. (2001) found in their meta-analysis that, as common sense tell us, the job seekers that engage in more job search behavior are more likely to obtain employment. As well, although meta-analysis does not provide information on causal relations, the pattern of results suggest that job search is more strongly related to psychological variables comprised by the broader construct of positive affectivity (e.g., extraversion, conscientiousness, self-esteem, job search self-efficacy) than to variables encompassed by the broad construct of negative affectivity (e.g., neuroticism, agreeableness). These findings are consistent with recent work by Kinicki and Latack (1990) suggesting a difference between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping behaviors following job loss. In terms of situational variables, motives (perceived financial need, employment commitment) were shown to be more strongly related to job search behavior than to employment outcomes, but social support and biographical factors (e.g., age, education, race) were generally similarly related to both job search behavior and employment outcomes.

Moreover, the Big-Five personality traits were more strongly related to job search behavior among first time job seekers (i.e. job entrants) compared with job losers (i.e. people who are unemployed). Self-esteem and employment commitment were more strongly related to job search among job losers than job entrants. Therefore, this pattern of findings provides evidence on the pathway by which job loss per se could exert debilitating effects in job search behavior. This further suggests that the experience of job loss may influence the initiation or efficiency of self-regulatory job search through changes in attitudes towards work and evaluations of one’s worth.

Additionally, neuroticism was positively related to job search effort but negatively related to job search intensity. To be precise, people higher in neuroticism tended to report greater subjective job search effort but fewer job search behaviors. This happens because individuals higher in neuroticism are more prone to experience difficulty in managing anxiety and other disruptive emotions during job search.

The findings also suggest that how individuals present themselves during the employee selection process may be as important to employment success as the job search. Therefore, some of the trait variables related to the effectiveness of self-regulated search behavior, such as conscientiousness and a strong internal locus of control, may be the same characteristics that employers look for when evaluating applicants. Hence, people that only take care of increasing their job search without taking care of how they “come across” in the interactions with future employers would be more likely to experience frustration and discouragement because of their repeated failure to advance the initial employment interview.

In addition, other researchers have found other individual differences in the strategies taken to search for a job. These strategies are called foraging strategies and are based on Foraging Theory which explains how individuals go about deciding if an option is or is not worth pursuing. An important concept in this theory has to do with the expected preparatory or planning effort, called search costs. This refers to the time, energy, risk, and foregone opportunities or regret the person foresees as required to achieve a goal (Kaplan & Hill, 1992; Krebs & Davies, 1997).

In Wieczorkowska and Burnstein’s (2004) studies, they examine two ideal types or styles of foraging that reflect opposite trade-offs between planning effort and goal-category range (i.e. number of options an individual considers acceptable). The first style describes people who are characteristically meticulous about means, willingly to take a lot of trouble planning and preparing, enjoy details, and people who strive to be systematic, precise and focused. These characteristics allow them to be careful about ends; they recall all but relatively small number of possibilities and concentrate on achieving one or more of them. These individuals may find the security or certainty that comes from knowing precisely what they want and how to get it.

The second style of foraging refers to individuals who are characteristically easygoing when it comes to preparation. These individuals prefer to avoid effortful planning and hence, plan in an imprecise, random or automatic manner with little attention to detail. Being insecure or uncertain about what can be achieved or the means to achievement is not aversive to them. The trade-offs they make inclines them to be undemanding regarding ends; they entertain a relatively large number, and, if necessary, are satisfied with what others might consider less desirable outcomes.

Overall, foraging is an adaptation and its expression varies over persons as well as situations. At the psychological level this means that in most domains that involve foraging-like behavior individuals tend to follow one of two default strategies. The first strategy is called a point strategy which is characterized by the tendency to form narrow goal-categories in foraging. These individuals are inclined to engage in an effortful search and, thereby, have a preference structure characterized by a narrow range of values, in the extreme case, a point on the dimensions defining domain of possible options. Whereas, the second strategy called interval strategy refers to the tendency to form broad goal-categories. These individuals are disinclined to engage in effortful search and have a preference structure characterized by a broad range of values or an interval on these dimensions (Wieczorkowska & Burnstein, 2004).

Based on foraging theory Wieczorkowska and Burnstein (2004) found that individuals who tend to form broad goal-categories, called interval strategists, gain more when options are scarce or unpredictable, whereas those tending to form narrow goal-categories gain more when options are plentiful or predictable. When job hunting, interval strategists find work faster than point strategists because their search costs are greater.

When evaluating the features of a job, point and interval strategists attribute different weights to security work (i.e. a job that is relatively secure even at the expense of pay) and systematic work (i.e. a job which performance and outcomes are multiple and variable). Point strategists are slightly more attracted to job offering secure outcomes (at the expense of pay) than interval strategists are; at the same time interval strategists are relatively averse to jobs involving systematic, regular performance while point strategists consider these sort of jobs attractive. Moreover, because interval strategists are more willing to accept a larger variety of outcomes, they are inherently more capable than point strategists of substituting among outcomes when circumstances require this (e.g. readily cease a pointless pursuit and switch to a feasible one).

Overall, individual differences in job hunting will determine the type of jobs we will pursue, and how fast we will get what we want. Finally, personality traits and foraging strategies will help us to accept rejections and keep on looking for the job we desire, and to make the right decisions when a job offer is on the table.

References

Bandura, A. (1989). Self-regulation of motivation and action through internal standards and goal systems. In L.A. Pervin (Ed.),Goal Concepts in Personality and Social Psychology (pp. 19-85). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K., & Strauss, J.P. (1993). Conscientiousness and performance in sales representatives: Test the mediating effects of goal setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 715-722.

Feather, N.T. (1990). The Psychological Impact of Unemployment. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Goldberg, L.R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality, 59, 1216-1229.

Kanfer, R., Wanberg, C.R., & Kantrowitz. T.M. (2001). Job search and employment: A personality-motivational analysis and meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 837-855.

Kaplan, H., & Hill, K. (1992). The evolutionary ecology of food acquisition. In E.A. Smith & B. Winterhalder (Eds.). Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior (pp. 167-202). New York: Aldine.

Kinicki, A.J., & Latack, J.C. (1990). Explication of the construct of coping with involuntary job loss. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 36, 339-360.

Krebs, J.R., & Davies, N.B. (Eds.). (1997) Behavioral Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach (3rd edn). Oxford: Blackwell.

Wieczorkowska, G., & Burnstein, E. (2004). Hunting for a job: how individual differences in foraging strategies influence the length of unemployment. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 7, 305-315.