Self-other agreement of personality judgments in job interviews: exploring the effects of trait, gender, age and social desirability.

The article investigated agreement between self-reports and stranger ratings of personality. A sample of 139 real-life job applicants was interviewed by expert psychologists upon entrance to the assessment center. The applicants provided self-descriptions on 15 personality factors, and the psychologists rated the same traits of each target based on their impressions in the interview. The results demonstrated that professional judges can reach a substantial self-other agreement (SOA) on several traits even when the targets are strangers, and that the trait being judged, the target's gender, age and social desirability have an effect on the level of agreement.