Conscientiousness is also correlated with job performance, and is about on par with IQ for predicting lifetime earnings. Agreeableness (also a Big-Five trait) is also quite important in cooperative settings (though both have small effects relative to IQ for single shot task performance).<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gwern.net&#x2F;Conscientiousness%20and%20online%20education#conscientiousness" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gwern.net&#x2F;Conscientiousness%20and%20online%20educ...</a> has a nice overview of the literature. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Conscientiousness" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Conscientiousness</a> does a reasonable job describing the trait.<p><i>Edit: while we&#x27;re listing large causal factors for work performance, I feel appalled I forgot to mention genetics... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9739126" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9739126</a> </i>