Personality in information systems professions

Purpose – The importance of information systems (IS) professions is increasing. As personality–job fit theory claims, employees must have suitable personality traits for particular IS professions. However, candidates can try to fake-good on personality tests towards the desired personality type. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify archetypal IS professions, their associated personality types and examine the reliability of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test in IS recruitment decisions. Design/methodology/approach – The authors reviewed academic literature related to IS professions to identify job archetypes and personality traits for IS professions. Then, the authors conducted an experiment with 452 participants to investigate whether candidates can fake-good on personality tests when being tested for a particular IS profession. Findings – The identified job archetypes were IS project manager, IS marketing specialist, IS consultant, IS security specialist, data scientist and business process analyst. The experimental results show that the participants were not able to fake-good considerably regarding their personality traits for a particular archetype. Research limitations/implications – The taxonomy of IS professions should be validated further. The experiment was executed in an educational organisation and not in a real-life environment. Actual work performance was not measured. Practical implications – This study enables a better identification of suitable candidates for a particular IS profession. Personality tests are good indicators of the candidate’s true personality type but must be properly interpreted. Originality/value – This study enhances the existing body of knowledge on IS professions’ archetypes, proposes suitable MBTI personality types for each profession and provides experimental support for the appropriateness of using personality tests to identify potentially suitable candidates