Predicting Ordination, Early-Career Mobility, and Career Adaptation from Ministerial Applicants' Psychological Assessment Results

The occupational group of ordained ministers is currently facing two types of change: the role of religion in Western societies is transforming, and the boundaryless work culture is expanding even further. As the profession is becoming more emanding, leaving clergy has become a worldwide problem across denominations. Churches are therefore increasingly applying psychological assessments to screen their applicants for ministry. Surprisingly, no studies have yet looked into the connections of these assessment results and later job-person fit: eventual ordination, early-career turnover and commitment, or early-career job performance and job mental ability, and social and attributional strategies were assessed for 785 persons heading for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland during 2006–2010. In a follow-up in 2012 (n = 314, 40 %), career mobility and career adaptation were inspected. The results indicate that the most influential feature is the determination of the applicant. Other aspects related to a successful career pattern were stability and absence of pessimistic strategies. The study confirms that personality metatraits are an applicable approach in selection assessment. Overall, the study provides an outlook on the entry stage recruitment to a vocational religious occupation in the boundaryless age of work.Peer reviewe