Based on data from four independent studies with a total sample size of 1,474, path analysis was used to examine the causal impact of job experience on job knowledge, performance capability as measured by job sample tests, and supervisory ratings of job performance. Findings support the conclusion that when (a) mean job experience is in the neighboorhood of 2 to 3 years, (b) there is substantial variance in job experience, and (c) the jobs are of an intermediate complexity level, job experience has a substantial direct impact on job knowledge and a smaller direct impact on performance capabilities as assessed by job sample measures. Job experience also has a substantial indirect effect on work sample performance through its effect on job knowledge, which, in turn, was found to be the strongest determinant of work sample performance. The pattern and magnitude of causal effects of general mental ability was found to be similar to those of job experience. The effect of job knowledge on supervisory ratings was found to be several times stronger than the effect of job sample performance, confirming the findings of Hunter (1983). When job experience was held constant, the direct impact of ability on the acquisition of job knowledge increased substantially, and this, in turn, increased the indirect effect of ability on job sample performance. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Data from four different jobs (N = 1,474) were used to evaluate three hypotheses of the joint relation of job experience and general mental ability to job performance as measured by (a) work sample measures, (b) job knowledge measures, and (c) supervisory ratings of job performance. The divergence hypothesis predicts an increasing difference and the convergence hypothesis predicts a decreasing difference in the job performance of high- and low-mental-ability employees as employees gain increasing experience on the job. The noninteractive hypothesis, by contrast, predicts that the performance difference will be constant over time. For all three measures of job performance, results supported the noninteractive hypothesis. Also, consistent with the noninteractive hypothesis, correlational analyses showed essentially constant validities for general mental ability (measured earlier) out to 5 years of experience on the job. In addition to their theoretical implications, these findings have an important practical implication: They indicate that the concerns that employment test validities may decrease over time, complicating estimates of selection utility, are probably unwarranted.

In this study, job performance increases resulting from improved selection validity were measured empirically rather than estimated from the standard linear regression utility equations. Selection utility analyses based on these empirical measurements were carried out for most white‐collar jobs in the federal government. Results indicate that selection of a one‐year cohort based on valid measures of cognitive ability, rather than on non‐test procedures (mostly evaluations of education and experience), produces increases in output worth up to $600 million for each year that the new employees remain employed by the government. Newly hired federal employees remain with the government an average of approximately 13 years, resulting in a total gain in output of almost $8 billion over this period. This gain represents a 9.7% increase in output among new hires. If total output is held constant rather than increased, new hiring can be reduced by up to 20,044 per year (a 9% decrease), resulting in payroll savings of $272 million for every year the new cohort of employees remains on the job. The percentage of new hires in the bottom decile of the non‐test‐selected job performance distribution

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