Personality Traits among Information Technology Officers and the Expectations of Human Resource Personnel

This study examined the importance assigned by Human Resource personnel to the personality traits of Information Technology officers. The extent to which these traits were evident among Information Technology officers was determined and compared to their level of importance among Human Resource personnel. The well-known 16 Personality Factors model was used and data was collected by questionnaire from 84 Information Technology officers working at operational levels in organizations and 64 Human Resource personnel with experience in the recruitment of Information Technology officers. For most of the traits the findings showed reasonable agreement between the level of importance of the traits according to the Human Resource personnel and the extent to which traits were evident among the Information Technology officers. However, there were differences with respect to the four traits Friendliness, Introversion, Sensitivity, and Intellect and the practical implications of these findings are discussed. KEywORdS Human Resource Personnel, Information Technology Officers, Intangible Skills, Personality Traits