Using Personality to Predict Outbound Call Center Job Performance

This study investigates the usefulness of the Big Five personality variables, as measured by the Performance Perspectives Inventory (Abraham & Morrison, 2002), in predicting objective measures of employee productivity and subjective measures of training performance in an outbound call center. We found that Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Agreeableness correlated significantly with productivity of incumbent outbound call center representatives. Additionally, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience correlated with new hire training performance. Reviewers of the technique’s history have referred to the period leading up t