There may not be more than what meets the eye when it comes to finance bros. That's because certain stereotypes about the workforce might actually hold weight, researchers from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Tartu found while surveying almost 70,000 people to create personality profiles of 263 occupations.
The researchers created a personality quiz that asked users to rank 74 statements about their personality based on a scale from very false to very true—and they found that people are more likely to exhibit certain traits depending on their job.
Those in sales, managerial positions, and public relations were revealed to be more extroverted, fitting with interpersonal the needs of their jobs. Managers ranked themselves higher in terms of organizational skills (as categorized as consciousnesses) and lower on the scale of emotionality (as labeled neuroticism).
Even so, salespeople, managers, and real estate agents “can also be disagreeable,” given the nature of their job which often involves conflict or “confrontational interactions with others,” the researchers found.
On the other hand, those in creative fields tend to be more curious and open to new experiences. They’re also more likely to be higher in neuroticism, as the sectors with the most neurotic people include journalism and acting.
The personas of Wall Street bros: The chicken or egg theory
By asking questions like how likely you are to leave a mess in your room or think about past mistakes, researchers were able to paint a picture of the personality traits of disparate professions.
The team ranked respondents based on the “Big Five” personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness.
"People often have stereotypes about the personality traits typical of different jobs, and it turns out that many of these intuitions are quite accurate,” Dr René Mõttus of the University of Edinburgh wrote in a press release. “But this is the first time a scientific study with such a large sample and such detailed assessments has confirmed these patterns.”
The researchers say the findings, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, paint the most detailed picture yet of which personality traits are more common in certain jobs.
But whether it’s a story of how similar people select certain career paths or how one’s job impacts a person’s perception of themselves, is yet to be known.
CEOs can appreciate those who go against the grain
While the shoe might fit, that doesn’t mean we need to wear it. In other words, executives have often espoused the value of candidates who come from different career experiences or have less common skills.
BlackRock’s COO Rob Goldstein said at Fortune’s Future of Finance that the asset management firm is looking to broaden its talent pool. “We need people who majored in history, in English, and things that have nothing to do with finance or technology,” Goldstein said. He explained that true innovation is found when a company has a “diversity of thinking and diversity of people and diversity of looking at different ways to solve a problem.”
Likewise, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has echoed that he doesn’t look at what young prospective new hires have studied at school—as long as they can “do one thing really well.”
Meanwhile, the president and chief operating officer at Blackstone Jon Gray has encouraged new graduates to fight the stereotype of being a wolf on Wall Street. The stereotype is that finance bros get ahead by being sharks, but the real key is perhaps in setting yourself aside from the crowd.
“We’re all ambitious, we want to succeed, but sometimes people forget—treating other people nicely can be a bit of a secret weapon,” he said this past summer.
