In this paper, we compare a number of real workload traces and synthetic workload models currently used to evaluate job scheduling and allocation strategies. Our results indicate that the choice of workload model alone — real workload trace versus synthetic workload models — did not significantly affect the relative performance of the algorithms in this study (two scheduling algorithms and three static processor allocation algorithms). Almost all traces and models gave the same ranking of algorithms from best to worst. However, two specific workload characteristics were found to significantly affect algorithm performance: (a) proportion of power-of-two job sizes and (b) degree of correlation between job size and job runtime. When used in the experimental evaluation of resource management algorithms, workloads differing in these two characteristics may lead to discrepant conclusions.