Step 3: Administer the Test Next, administer the selected test(s) to employees. You
have two choices here. One option is to administer the tests to employees
presently on the job. You then compare their test scores with their current performance;
this is concurrent validation. Its main advantage is that data on performance
are readily available. The disadvantage is that current employees may
not be representative of new applicants (who of course are really the ones for
whom you are interested in developing a screening test). Current employees
have already had on-the-job training and have been screened by your existing
selection techniques.
Predictive validation is the second and more dependable way to validate a
test. Here you administer the test to applicants before you hire them. Then hire
these applicants using only existing selection techniques, not the results of the
new tests. After they have been on the job for some time, measure their performance
and compare it to their earlier test scores. You can then determine
whether you could have used their performance on the new test to predict their
subsequent job performance.