Personality judgments of 184 targets were provided by the self, college acquaintances, hometown acquaintances, parents, and strangers. Study 1 found that knowing the target in the same context enhanced but was not necessary for interjudge agreement and that acquaintances who had never met agreed with each other as well as those who had met. Study 2 found that personality judgements by acquaintances manifested much better interjudge and self-other agreement than did judgments by strangers. Acquaintances were not more similar to their targets than were strangers, and their accuracy derived more from their distinctive judgment of the target than from assumed similarity. These results rule out overlap, communication, and assumed similarity as necessary bases of interjudge agreement and thereby support the simpler hypothesis that interjudge agreement stems from mutual accuracy.

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A first line of defense for an organization against counterproductive behavior in the workplace is the accurate detection during the interview process of a job candidate’s counterproductive traits. This article discusses aspects of the interview format and other considerations relevant to increasing the accuracy of the assessment of a job candidate’s personality. Recent research suggests that the unstructured interview may be of high value in comparison to the traditional structured interview format, when accurate personality prediction is the criterion (Blackman, in press–a; Ickes, Snyder and Garcia 1997). Interviewers can also become more sophisticated in evaluating the probable accuracy of their judgments by learning about four important moderators of accuracy: properties of the judge, of the target, of the trait being judged, and of the information upon which the judgment is based (Funder 1995).

This study examined 2 different personnel selection interview techniques-the structured and the unstructured employment interview-to determine which method would lead to the most accurate assessment of the applicant's job-related personality traits. It was hypothesized that the unstructured method would allow for the applicant's personality characteristics to more readily manifest themselves as the applicant's behavior would be less scripted, thus leading to a more accurate personality assessment. Participants in this study conducted mock job interviews using either the structured or the unstructured method, while their behavior was coded by an independent rater. Self-ratings of job-related personality traits from the California Q-set (Bem & Funder, 1978;Block, 1978) were obtained from the applicant, and ratings of the applicant's personality were obtained from the interviewer and a peer of the applicant. Self-interviewer and peer-interviewer agreement correlations were then used as the criteria for accuracy. It was found that the average self-interviewer and peer-interviewer agreement correlation were significantly greater when the interviewer implemented the unstructured interview method, thus supporting the hypothesis. A prominent behavioral difference between the 2 interview formats was found and is discussed as a variable that mediates the effect of interview structure on personality judgment.

This study examined 2 different personnel selection interview techniques-the structured and the unstructured employment interview-to determine which method would lead to the most accurate assessment of the applicant's job-related personality traits. It was hypothesized that the unstructured method would allow for the applicant's personality characteristics to more readily manifest themselves as the applicant's behavior would be less scripted, thus leading to a more accurate personality assessment. Participants in this study conducted mock job interviews using either the structured or the unstructured method, while their behavior was coded by an independent rater. Self-ratings of job-related personality traits from the California Q-set (Bem & Funder, 1978;Block, 1978) were obtained from the applicant, and ratings of the applicant's personality were obtained from the interviewer and a peer of the applicant. Self-interviewer and peer-interviewer agreement correlations were then used as the criteria for accuracy. It was found that the average self-interviewer and peer-interviewer agreement correlation were significantly greater when the interviewer implemented the unstructured interview method, thus supporting the hypothesis. A prominent behavioral difference between the 2 interview formats was found and is discussed as a variable that mediates the effect of interview structure on personality judgment.