Personality profile of financial sales staff based on Super’s Work Values Inventory

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is to build a personality profile for financial sales personnel based on Super’s Work Values Inventory that will help select the best candidates for sales staff in the financial and insurance sectors. This personality profile could be used to decide whether a candidate’s psychometric characteristics are suitable for a financial sales position and meet the requirements of the profession as well as the general expectations of the given firm. To attain this aim, a comparative personality test was conducted in Hungary for the first time on a sample of 1,000 people working in the financial and insurance sectors. The following hypothesis is proposed by the author: Regarding sales associates in the financial and insurance sectors, the number of Super’s Work Values Inventory principal components and the items connected these principal components show a significant difference from the results of a 2006 Hungarian survey. The findings confirm this hypothesis.