Welcome to 2018! This first link actually highlights a look at valid personality testing on a largely read website. This makes me think that the year is off to a good start in the field.
Along those same lines of predicting behavior, a line of thought has always been that school grades are indicative of future success. The logic behind this makes sense. If a student applies him/herself and does well in school, then it is likely that he or she will do the same at work. Critics will say that grades measure something very specific that does not really translate to work and there are biases in how grades are given (which is why universities use standardized tests).
As always, what makes a good predictor really depends on the outcomes you are looking for. If your goal is to hire people who are good at following rules and doing lots of things pretty well, then this article suggests that school grades should be part of your evaluation process. But, if you want to hire very creative and novel thinkers, then GPA probably is not your best answer.
What also grabbed me about the article was the definition of success. The research article cited indicated that those who did very well in high school, nearly all of them were doing well in work and leading good lives. But, for the authors, this apparently is not enough. Why? Because none of them have “impressed the world,” whatever that means. And because there are lots of millionaires with relatively low GPAs (here is a suggestion: how about controlling for parents’ wealth before making that calculation?).
From an employment perspective, we need to be clear what valuable performance looks like when validating and part of the selection process. If your goal is to select people into positions that require developing unique solutions, then GPA may not be a useful predictor. However, if you expect people to follow processes and execute procedures, then GPA is likely to be a useful tool which should be used with other valid predictors.
And, if you are looking to hire people who are going to “impress the world,” good luck to you.