Comment by JumpCrisscross

> educational excellence often selects for agreeableness

Only to a limited degree. "The average relationship of academic performance with Conscientiousness (d = .46) can be seen as a medium-sized effect, the relationships with Agreeableness (d = .14) and Openness (d = .24) as small effects, and the relationships with Emotional Stability and Extraversion as relatively minor" [1].

Moreover, given "correlations with Agreeableness were least affected by controlling for intelligence" (page 26) and "increasing age was associated with declining correlations with Agreeableness" (page 29), one could argue that better-educated individuals will be more Agreeable (per the Big Five model [2]) solely due to being older.

More likely is interview performance, as "Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability are all associated with social desirability (Digman, 1997), which has also been shown to affect performance ratings (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995)" (page 36).

[1] https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle... page 22

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits