Low Conscientiousness is a personality trait that indicates a lack of impulse control. It can be described with keywords such as “dishonest”, “lazy”, “fickle”, and “lack of common sense”.
BigFive is a major axis that most people perceive easily. To measure low Conscientiousness, it is essential to focus on the looseness towards desires.
Furthermore, since there is a tendency to disregard interpersonal courtesy, please observe comprehensively, including the arrogance in speech and behavior.
Conversation Setting
Conscientiousness is manifested in the aspect of overcoming desires and challenging environments, so it can be assessed by asking about candidates’ efforts, regardless of the theme.
- In the case of mid-career hiring, it would be appropriate to inquire about the challenges faced at work. Work is a treasure trove of difficult situations, so there should be no shortage of topics to discuss.
- For new graduates, episodes where they put forth their best effort are considered highly relevant.
In general, during job interviews, candidates often come prepared with past achievements and successes. However, the size of the accomplishments is not as crucial as the magnitude of the efforts invested, which directly relates to the person’s reliability.
If the success story is short-term, it is better to wrap it up quickly.
And it may be necessary to guide the conversation by saying, “Stories with significant struggles, including failures, are more preferable than just success stories”.
Individuals with low Conscientiousness tend to avoid any hardships, which may result in a lack of long-term, sustained effort episodes or fabricated stories with inconsistencies.
Points of Assessment
You can assess one’s Conscientiousness, based on an overall impression of integrity, trustworthiness, and steadfastness.
Individuals with low Conscientiousness readily lie and deceive others as part of their daily behavior, so relying solely on the content of their stories can lead to misjudgments.
The degree to which the interviewer perceives someone as “careless” in their behavior can be utilized as a judgment point.
Pay attention to impressions such as greetings, response attitudes, and speaking style.
Polite behavior may vary according to different cultures, but individuals with high Conscientiousness consistently try to maintain politeness, resulting in consistent actions and speech. The degree of appearing careless reflects a lack of daily awareness of politeness.
In companies that value Conscientiousness, it would be helpful to have interviewers evaluate and record a list of behaviors that give them a careless impression, which can be used in the final comprehensive assessment.
Creating a standardized checklist of behaviors to be evaluated is also effective.
Furthermore, it is important to be cautious about the quality of evaluations when Conscientiousness of the interviewer themselves is low, as this may lead to a decrease in the standard of judgment.
Risks and Levels of low Conscientiousness
As a result of extensive academic research, Conscientiousness has been found to be highly correlated with job performance across various professions.
“Persistence pays off” has been proven.
In general, higher Conscientiousness should be considered superior.
However, in practical situations, it may be sufficient to simply confirm that Conscientiousness is not low, due to the following reasons:
- In highly challenging professions, even high Conscientiousness alone may not meet the requirements, and specific score ranges (higher is not always better) are necessary for other characteristics.
- For many professions, being moderate in Conscientiousness is enough. Due to constraints in the business model, high Conscientiousness may not lead to overwhelmingly outstanding performance.
- Social resources are limited, and individuals with high Conscientiousness should be placed in roles where they actively require it.
- Additionally, there are job categories where individuals with low Conscientiousness are utilized for short-term or one-off tasks. In such cases, it is recommended to also assess Agreebleness.
When both Conscientiousness and Agreebleness are low, it results in a selfish personality profile, raising concerns about adverse events in many companies.
On the other hand, if Agreebleness is high, self-centeredness tends to decrease relatively, making it less of a major concern in comparison.
