Managers must evaluate the performance, promotability and potential of workers with very different personal characteristics such as age, sex, or race. The research literature indicates that these personal characteristics affect decisions. Furthermore, these characteristics appear to be more salient and to affect decisions in some situations more than in others. Two possible explanations for this phenomenon closely parallel Wernimont and Campbell's (1968) distinction between signs and samples as indicators of job performance. First, personal characteristics may act as a sign to guide a manager's expectations about a worker's level of performance. On the other hand, person constructs may become salient by being either highly consistent or inconsistent with the sample of person characteristics or situations. The sign approach suggests that researchers should study the supervisor's beliefs about relationships between traits and behaviors, as in Implicit Personality Theory research. The sample approach suggests that the relationship between traits and behaviors is not context-free and the situation and supervisor's perception of the situation should be studied. Both views must be considered in research on the interaction between persons and jobs. Several tables and figures are appended. (Author/ABL)