Beyond Personality Traits and Interests: Character Strengths and Person-Job Fit in Predicting Work Outcomes

Vocational interests, personality traits, and character strengths overlap, but their shared versus domain-specific links to work outcomes – and the role of person-job fit – remain unclear because these frameworks have rarely been examined together. In this study, N = 259 working adults (79% women; ages 20–73) rated their RIASEC interests, FFM personality traits, and VIA character strengths and the extent to which each attribute was demanded by their jobs. Profile correlations between person attributes and perceived job demands were used as indices of perceived person-job fit. Outcomes were job satisfaction, work engagement, and self-rated performance. At both the person and perceived job-demand levels, all three frameworks (vocational interests, personality traits, character strengths) showed associations with the work outcomes, although their relative contributions differed. Commonality analyses indicated substantial overlap among the three frameworks, alongside smaller domain-specific contributions. Across all three frameworks, person attributes and perceived job demands showed stronger associations with work outcomes than profile similarity, whose incremental contribution beyond person and environment characteristics was small. These findings suggest that character strengths complement established vocational interest and personality frameworks by providing additional information about work-related individual differences, while profile similarity contributes comparatively little beyond person attributes and perceived job demands.