Although the application of ipsative personality measures for inter‐individual comparisons is still controversial research comparing the criterion validity of ipsative and normative instruments is rare. In a field study 145 German speaking expatriates were assessed with the normative NEO‐PI‐R, the ipsative OPQ32i and a 17 item measure of job performance (self report and other ratings). Controlling for several demographic variables multiple regressions, incremental validities over and above each instrument and cross validations were calculated. Results with respect to the differences in how valuable both instruments are for predicting expatriate job performance are presented and discussed.