8 ms·

Higher education is used as a proxy for intelligence by companies who are hiring because they are not allowed to use IQ tests. So I think it kind of makes sense

• Danihan 9y ago
  For fuck's sake, cut out the middle man and just request SAT / ACT scores.
  • auxym 9y ago
    I'm canadian so have never taken these tests, but I was under the impression that a large component of scoring well on them is cramming?
    • jx2zhou 9y ago
      You're correct.
    • losvedir 9y ago
      Not really. I think of the SAT as a great equalizer since a brilliant kid in rural Nebraska will do well and be able to go to an elite college, while a silver spoon heir will spend thousands and maybe improve their score but certainly not max it out. Not to toot my own horn but I got a perfect score on the math part of the SAT with little prep, and I've tutored others on the same and only managed to eke out a little improvement. (In contrast, I've tutored math course work and had more success there.) The math isn't very advanced, it's just a matter of doing it quickly and accurately.
      • JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        > I think of the SAT as a great equalizer The truth is more nuanced [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/03/05/these-four-charts-show-how-the-sat-favors-the-rich-educated-families/?utm_term=.3582505ca972 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/03/05/these...
    • akgerber 9y ago
      I did very well on both tests in high school without much cramming (I skimmed one study book from the library), and scored something like 90th percentile when I took the ACT in middle school. Whether this is correlated to anything important in real life is an entirely separate question.
    • trentmb 9y ago
      Maybe. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/09/can-coaching-truly-boost-sat-scores-for-years-the-college-board-said-no-now-it-says-yes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/...
    • thaumasiotes 9y ago
      From a psychometric perspective, they are IQ tests, in that they show the same correlation with IQ tests that IQ tests show with each other. From a research-into-today's-hot-button-issues perspective, they are routinely slammed for being about cramming, but the effect of test preparation on test scores tends to be very close to zero when you look into it.
  • Joof 9y ago
    I did well, but I also took it with a severe migraine. Can I take it again now?
• pavlov 9y ago
  If IQ tests were a reliable measure of any job capability, surely the brilliant minds at Mensa would already have made a mint by selling recruitment services.
  • chefandy 9y ago
    Well, part of the problem is that mensa is a total crock of shit.
    • pessimizer 9y ago
      Whatever it is, it's a group filled with people who score very high on iq tests.
    • git_rancher 9y ago
      You may not know this but a primary purpose of Mensa is to help "smart" people find other "smart" people to socialize with. In that sense it succeeds (I'm a member).
    • astura 9y ago
      Define "crock of shit?" It's just an organization with membership requirements, by that logic organizations such as the VFW are a "crock of shit."
  • toasterlovin 9y ago
    See this commment elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15828513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15828513
• jogjayr 9y ago
  > because they are not allowed to use IQ tests There's actual employment law that prohibits using IQ tests? I'd never heard that before
  • benji-york 9y ago
    Here's a little bit of discussion: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/iq_and_hiring_d.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/iq_and_hiring_d....
  • ramses0 9y ago
    It's related to anti-discrimination / "psychology-test" laws. If there is any sort of "test" given as a condition of employment, it must be relevant, standardized, non-biased, reviewed by specialists and approved, etc. http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Test1.jpg.CROP_.article920-large.jpg http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Test1... The value and definition of "IQ" is widely disputed and generally seen as of limited relevance to the actual work and performance of that work (uncorrelated). Look it up and do some research if you're interested, this is just a quick showing of _why_ tests may be considered bad.
    • majormajor 9y ago
      One day I wonder if some lawyer will strike it big by making an argument that looking at universities is discrimination because e.g. family connections and wealth give you a big leg up in getting into certain elite schools...
      • toasterlovin 9y ago
        Yeah, but most universities engage in affirmative action, which theoretically negates this.
    • jogjayr 9y ago
      The linked image you shared is one I've seen before that was a Louisiana state voter literacy test used for voter suppression. It was disproportionately administered to black voters[1] I'm not saying that IQ tests are useful measures of ability to do a job. I just wasn't aware there was actual law or precedent forbidding their use. > If there is any sort of "test" given as a condition of employment, it must be relevant, standardized, non-biased, reviewed by specialists and approved, etc. Wouldn't this disqualify a lot of whiteboard interviews too? Most startups don't have a standard question bank reviewed by experts or grade on a standard rubric. 1. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_right...
• valuearb 9y ago
  It's not just an IQ test, it's a test of ability, which is different. Your college record shows that you a) Whether you were able to get the work done. b) Whether you were smart enough to do the work well. It's the combination that's important, not either single one. Employers want people who show up on time, actually care enough to try, and are smart enough to figure it out. The college degree has a better than zero correlation to that. After you get the job it's mainly about performance and output, once you've been promoted a few times your college degree mostly doesn't matter.
  • rogerbinns 9y ago
    It also shows that you could do that for several years, following the rules set by someone else, and passing.
    • bittercynic 9y ago
      Nice double meaning with 'passing' also meaning something like: "able to appear to be what those in power want me to be."
      • mwfunk 9y ago
        I would not interpret it that way at all. Being able to understand requirements and implement stuff based on those requirements, or work as part of a team, or maintain dedication to a task for weeks or months at a time, has nothing to do with teenage notions of the world being populated by conformists vs. nonconformists (which ironically is usually based on very conformist notions of what it means to be a nonconformist). On the other hand, I have known a number of people who used their self-identification as a nonconformist as an excuse for why they couldn't cut it someplace, whether it's school or a job or some interpersonal situation. It's a bad excuse because it gives the person an easy out for not reflecting on how they could have handled the situation better, or avoided getting into the situation in the first place. It also pushes all of the blame on other people, which is comforting but very rarely 100% true. We should all be our own worst critics, lest someone else beats us to it.
  • 9y ago
• vilmosi 9y ago
  Meh, IQ is potential, not capability, to do a job. I don't find this argument convincing. What about all the literal geniuses who have no interest and never studied CS? At least the graduate can show that he/she can commit to a multi-year long, sometimes boring, project successfully. A high IQ person could just leave your company after 6 months because "they're bored".
  • toasterlovin 9y ago
    I’m not saying employers would hire solely based on IQ. That would be crazy. It’s just a screening measure. But so is educational attainment. Nobody gets hired because they have a college degree, but plenty of people don’t get hired because they lack a college degree. Also, agree that educational attainment gives you more information about a candidate, but in terms of assessing intelligence, it is a coarser measure than IQ. I’ve hired a few people in my day, and there is huge divergence in intelligence among college grads. For lots of jobs it is useful to be able to distinguish between not-stupid, bright, and ridiculously smart. Educational attainment doesn’t really help with that, but IQ tests would.
• danjoc 9y ago
  >Higher education is used as a proxy for intelligence by companies who are hiring because they are not allowed to use IQ tests. I think you're wrong about that, http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...
  • toasterlovin 9y ago
    Your link is to a story about an employer who uses a test which is a proxy for intelligence (they even give the rough equivalency between the test they use and IQ). I think that supports my point that intelligence is one of the more important things employers are looking for. Most employers don’t have the resources to develop a hiring screening test and then certify that it is not discriminatory, so they use educational attainment instead. Another way to approach this is to ask yourself: if not as a proxy for intelligence, then why do some jobs require a college degree?
    • astura 9y ago
      IQ tests used for hiring do exist in the US - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test
      • fjsolwmv 9y ago
        Yes, and that exact test was the one that is legally fraught: https://www.wonderlic.com/resources/publications/white-paper-wonderlic-assessments-legal-history-issues/ https://www.wonderlic.com/resources/publications/white-paper...
    • danjoc 9y ago
      Still wrong. https://www.hiresuccess.com/blog/is-employment-testing-legal https://www.hiresuccess.com/blog/is-employment-testing-legal >I think that supports my point I didn't say it invalidated your point. I'm trying to draw your attention to a specific area in your statement that is wrong. You can simply say, >Higher education is used as a proxy for intelligence by companies That's enough. Nobody will argue with you about that.
• crdoconnor 9y ago
  Higher education seems like more of a "class marker" to me.
  • toasterlovin 9y ago
    Or maybe the causal factor for both class and higher education is intelligence. The Bell Curve makes a compelling case that the transition away from agriculture toward knowledge work over the last 100 years has created a society in which intelligence is funneled into higher education and from there into high paying professions.
    • fjsolwmv 9y ago
      The Bell Curve is a famous case of quasi-science. You are putting statistical speculation up against centuries of well-documented explicit discrimination policies.
      • toasterlovin 9y ago
        Have you read The Bell Curve? You may disagree with some of its conclusions (I personally am skeptical of its conclusions about racial differences in IQ), but to call it pseudo science is, I think, unfair. FWIW, Steven Pinker, who is about as thoughtful and level headed as they come, agrees: https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/846912847036723202?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/84691284703672320... And, anyway, the point I was making had nothing to do with racial IQ differences. It was referring to what the rest of The Bell Curve is about (discussion of racial IQ differences makes up only about 25% of the book): how the US society’s transition away from most people working in agriculture toward most people working at desks has created a class structure stratified by intelligence. It’s actually a shame that the book discusses racial IQ differences at all, because everyone got hung up on that and totally missed what is, IMO, a much more important point. And I think it explains a lot about current politics in the US.
      • holbrad 9y ago
        You seem to be rather confused about the Bell Curve. It's my understanding that the main data presented hasn't been overturned or disproved (In-fact quite the opposite)
• cloverich 9y ago
  For better or worse, it _is_ a proxy for many things. But one that i think is most relevant to a typical job is the ability to see something that is sometimes fun, sometimes boring, and sometimes challenging through to the end. Typically staying put in one place while doing so. Its not intended to be vocational training, but in a sense it matches very well with what's expect of the typical employee: Show up consistently, deal with stress and various people and tasks with an ability to see it all through, without quitting or pissing too many people off. If you can cope well and make it through undergrad, you can likely handle a vast array of jobs.