PERSON-JOB FIT: A CASE STUDY IN A SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISE (SME) IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Personality influences every aspect of life, from how an individual reacts to situations, to how a person makes decision in workplace, which can ultimately decide a person's performance. In this paper, the concept of person-job fit is explored as a psychometric output, where this paper aims to determine the most effective personality traits of a high performer in specific jobs in an SME Malaysia. This paper also aims to determine the differences in personality traits between a high and a poor performer, as well as to compare the personality traits of a managerial personnel to a non-managerial personnel. The methodology adopted in this research is to conduct semi-structure interviews and review relevant company documents to gauge the personality traits and performance level of the employees selected for the study.

The result shows that the findings are parallel to the congruence principle suggested by the reviewed literature from multiple sources, where the higher congruence between a person personality traits and the job requirements (person-job fit), the higher the employee performance. The study also found that Conscientiousness and Judging are the most effective personality traits for engineers, whereas a sales representative should be more Openness to experience, Judging and slightly dominant for the particular SME. A high performer should always exhibits Conscientiousness compared to a poor performer. The findings also show that a high performing managerial personnel is more Conscientious, Judging and can be situational Dominant compared to
non-managerial personnel.