Relationships between resum cues and applicants' personality

Human resource (HR) professionals regularly draw personality inferences from applicants' resum & eacute;s. Building on the lens model, we illuminate resum & eacute;s' potential for accurately inferring personality by examining valid resum & eacute; cues indicating personality. We assessed self-reported big five traits and narcissism of 141 business students at career start applying with resum & eacute;s for a fictional position. Drawing on personality theory and empirical findings, 70 resum & eacute; cues (e.g., appealing look and creative hobbies) were post hoc selected from a larger cue set comprising 160 cues coded by 11 trained coders. Computing bivariate correlations and multiple linear regressions, we identified easy-to-interpret valid resum & eacute; cues explaining substantial personality variance, with conscientiousness, openness, and narcissism being best explained by resum & eacute; cues (R-2 > 20%). Although all considered personality traits were expressed in resum & eacute; cues, only a fraction of the cues (16 out of 70 cues) were related to personality traits. This suggests a rather mediocre upper limit to the potential of accurately inferring personality from resum & eacute;s. We contribute to the literature on personality inferences at zero-acquaintance by adding valid resum & eacute; cues to recruitment-related information bases allowing to make (somewhat) accurate personality inferences. The results have practical implications for applying resum & eacute;-based personality inferences in recruitment and improving HR professionals' accuracy.