Free Perfect Personality Profiles by Helen Baron Page B

answers to their questions, but they could find that their tendency to focus too much on minor details makes their responses less effective. They may find assessment procedures quite stressful when they do not know what to expect and are unable to prepare themselves appropriately.
    Low conscientiousness
    People who are low on conscientiousness see deadlines, procedures and work demands as flexible. They prefer not to be constrained by set plans and rules and to be able to respond to the requirements of the moment. They tend to dislike work that requires a meticulous or careful approach. They prefer looking at things in more general, global or ‘big picture’ terms to getting tied up in detail. They may be more concerned with getting things done and prefer not to spend time checking quality and accuracy. They may become impatient if they are slowed down by someone who wants to do things with greater care and attention. They don’t mind taking some risks and are likely to be willing to go with new opportunities that arise even if this means changing plans. They tend to be unstructured in their approach. They can be untidy and messy in their work habits, miss deadlines and fail to finish things properly, leaving loose ends for others to tie up. They may be easily distracted on to other tasks and leave some things undone unless reminded.
    Low conscientiousness people are better suited to work in unstructured environments where the focus is on meeting constantly shifting priorities, where it is important to work with the needs of the moment rather than to plan ahead to meet fixed deadlines. They can be suitable for roles where a flexible approach is helpful, such as sales. They can be better at working in multi-tasking or swift-moving environments than people who are high on conscientiousness, but they are not well suited to doing careful, meticulous work, and they may find it difficult to meet deadlines without external prompting and support.
    As job seekers, low conscientiousness people will tend to take quite a haphazard approach and often miss opportunities through being late for deadlines or failing to prepare thoroughly. They may arrive late for interviews and forget to bring important documents with them. On the other hand, their natural tendency to extemporize may stand them in good stead when they are dealing with questions they had not expected or exercises they had not prepared for. They are likely to be able to take a broad perspective rather than being distracted by minor details when they are answering an interviewer’s questions.
    Moderate conscientiousness
    People who are intermediate on conscientiousness may be moderately careful and meticulous in their work and place a reasonable degree of importance on meeting standards and deadlines. However, they will not be too rigid in their approach and will balance the need for structure with an understanding of the need to shift priorities to more important tasks and to sometimes leave tasks unfinished. They will be moderately tidy and careful, but they may make errors from time to time or sometimes leave things in a bit of a mess, although they might have a burst of tidying up from time to time.
    People with this behavioural style will be well suited to jobs that require a moderate degree of structure and attention to detail. They will also be suitable for jobs that have elements of structured, careful, detailed work as well as elements that require more global thinking or flexible working.
    Others who are moderately conscientious may be high on some of the traits associated with conscientiousness and low on others. For example, a person might be very structured and tidy in their work but pay little attention to deadlines and be very willing to restructure what they were doing to meet new priorities. Alternatively, a person might be very risk averse and safety conscious but pay little attention to detail and quality in their work. Depending on which elements of