Does conscientiousness predict job performance?

It is the Big Five trait most consistently linked to performance. A meta-analysis covering five occupational groups found conscientiousness related to every performance measure in every group (Barrick and Mount, 1991). That research used validated questionnaires rather than estimates from writing, and Tejesha is not built for hiring decisions.

Why is conscientiousness hard to read from someone writing?

It leaves the faintest trace of the five traits. In a study of 694 bloggers, only 13 individual words reached the strictest significance threshold for conscientiousness, against 393 for openness (Yarkoni, 2010). A short brief should say so rather than guess, which is why Tejesha reports a confidence level for each trait separately.

Does conscientiousness change over time?

Average levels tend to rise through young adulthood, roughly between the ages of 20 and 40, according to a meta-analysis of 92 longitudinal samples (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006).

Big Five guide

Conscientiousness: how to communicate with people high or low in it

People higher in conscientiousness value order, detail and follow-through, so send an agenda ahead of time, be specific, and confirm next steps in writing. People lower in conscientiousness want the headline and room to move, so keep it short, lead with the outcome and make the next step take one click.

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Definition

What conscientiousness is

Conscientiousness describes how much someone works in an organized, dependable and goal-directed way. It is one of the five broad traits research converged on (Goldberg, 1990), and the one most consistently linked to job performance across occupations (Barrick and Mount, 1991).

It is a range rather than a type. Higher conscientiousness brings planning, thoroughness and follow-through. Lower conscientiousness brings speed, flexibility and comfort with changing priorities. Neither end measures how much someone cares.

Industriousness

Drive to work hard and finish what was started.

Orderliness

Preference for structure, tidiness and clear rules.

Every Big Five trait divides into two aspects, and a person can sit high on one and in the middle on the other (DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson, 2007).

In one study, people higher in conscientiousness rated an advertisement more highly when its message was framed around efficiency and goal pursuit (Hirsh, Kang and Bodenhausen, 2012). The effect was modest, and the authors note that framing does not rescue a weak message.

At work

What conscientiousness looks like day to day

Neither column is a better colleague or a better buyer. They need different things from you.

Higher conscientiousness

Organized and thorough, plans ahead

Arrives prepared, and expects the same from you
Wants dates, owners and a written summary
Reads the detail, including the parts you hoped they would skip
Dislikes surprises more than they dislike bad news

Lower conscientiousness

Flexible and spontaneous, comfortable improvising

Decides from the headline and fills in the detail later
Is comfortable starting before everything is settled
Can lose track of a long process with many steps
Responds better to a nudge than to a plan

In writing

How conscientiousness shows up in language

Higher conscientiousness

Slightly more use of words like completed (Yarkoni, 2010)

Lower conscientiousness

Slightly more use of words like stupid and boring (Yarkoni, 2010)

Conscientiousness is the hardest of the five to read from text. In a study of 694 bloggers, only 13 individual words were linked to it at the strictest threshold, against 393 for openness (Yarkoni, 2010). Expect lower confidence on this trait, and give more weight to behavior you can see, such as whether someone answers a scheduling request, than to word choice.

How Tejesha estimates traits, and how confident it is

For sellers

Adapting outreach to conscientiousness

Same offer, different framing. Start here when you know roughly where someone sits.

Higher conscientiousness

Send an agenda before the call and a written summary after, with dates and owners
Bring the specifics: what happens in week one, who does what, what could delay it
Answer questions exactly as asked, in the order they were asked
Vague timelines and anything that sounds like we can work that out later
Moving a meeting at short notice, which costs more trust here than anywhere else

Lower conscientiousness

Lead with the outcome and keep the message short
Make the next step one click, and offer to handle the setup yourself
Send a short reminder the day before
Long process documents and multi-step forms
Reading a checklist aloud on the call

For recruiters

Writing to candidates

Higher conscientiousness

Set out the stages and the timeline up front, then stick to them
Be precise about scope, expectations and how the work is judged
Reply when you said you would, even if the answer is that no decision has been made

Lower conscientiousness

Keep the application short and the first conversation informal
Lead with the work and the people, not the process
Send reminders, and make every step easy to finish on a phone

Use this to write better messages, never to judge a candidate. Personality estimates are not designed or validated for screening, ranking or selecting people.

Where Tejesha stops in recruiting

Questions

Questions about conscientiousness

Does conscientiousness predict job performance?: It is the Big Five trait most consistently linked to performance. A meta-analysis covering five occupational groups found conscientiousness related to every performance measure in every group (Barrick and Mount, 1991). That research used validated questionnaires rather than estimates from writing, and Tejesha is not built for hiring decisions. Where Tejesha stops in recruiting.
Why is conscientiousness hard to read from someone writing?: It leaves the faintest trace of the five traits. In a study of 694 bloggers, only 13 individual words reached the strictest significance threshold for conscientiousness, against 393 for openness (Yarkoni, 2010). A short brief should say so rather than guess, which is why Tejesha reports a confidence level for each trait separately.
Does conscientiousness change over time?: Average levels tend to rise through young adulthood, roughly between the ages of 20 and 40, according to a meta-analysis of 92 longitudinal samples (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006).

Sources

Last reviewed September 15, 2026.

Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1216-1229.
Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26.
DeYoung, C. G., Quilty, L. C., & Peterson, J. B. (2007). Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 880-896.
Yarkoni, T. (2010). Personality in 100,000 words: A large-scale analysis of personality and word use among bloggers. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(3), 363-373.
Hirsh, J. B., Kang, S. K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2012). Personalized persuasion: Tailoring persuasive appeals to recipients' personality traits. Psychological Science, 23(6), 578-581.
Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 1-25.

The other four traits

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