4 ms·

what does it say about the employer?

by keiretsu 19y ago

npk 19y ago
That they don't really understand statistics.
- keiretsu 19y ago
  so you are inferring that there is enough statistical evidence to prove the hypothesis that a high iq person does not make for a good employee.
  - npk 19y ago
    You're falling into a trap. Using the vocabulary of statistics does not mean you are thinking statistically. The classic refute, "correlation does not imply causation," applies here. I bet that the top people at top companies have high IQs, this does not mean that a high IQ person makes a top employee. I'm assuming you're hiring someone at a high level for a small company. Performing an IQ test is too much effort for not enough gain. As a result, you are performing a reverse IQ test. Intelligent people, asked to take an IQ test to join a one person startup, will view it as a waste of their time, and walk away. Go ahead, ask for SAT score. The most useful aspect of SAT score is in establishing company culture. It seems to me that you want to form a company where employess are the top grads from top universities. This is a classic, and successful model for hiring people. Asking potentital employess to take an IQ test will harm you in the end.
    - keiretsu 19y ago
      see my comment below. I'm not planning to ask them to take a full blown iq tests. Just those "iq games" that i find are empirically good in classifying the smart from the non-smart
      - run4yourlives 19y ago
        Good luck to you. Seriously, it already appears that you have made up your mind and don't need any more of our advice. 3 separate people have pointed out why IQ test are a bad idea, yet you are still not convinced. There is not much else to say except good luck.
        keiretsu 19y ago
        ok fine. if iq tests are such a bad idea, what verifiable tests are there that can be used to classify a good employee and a bad employee? I'm sorry but gut feel just doesn't cut it.
        abstractbill 19y ago
        The belief that there could be a universal test that maps a person onto some scalar value ranging from "good employee" to "bad employee" says a lot about the belief's holder. Sorry if that sounds snarky - it's just the way I feel.
        keiretsu 19y ago
        it's called probability. It just depends on how you define a good employee and a bad employee and based on that definition, you can prepare a hiring program and test if that program works. Almost all successful companies have some sort of verifiable hiring programs. facebook has their puzzles as a screener test. It is not a universal test but it helps. If you are able to solve the puzzles, there should be a higher probability that you are a better employee to the company than someone who can't solve the puzzles. All they need to do is verify if those puzzles are good at screening good hires. If yes, well done then. They've got themselves a great hiring tool. I'm not asking for the one almighty test that can screen if an employee is good or bad. I'm asking for tests that can help in increasing the probability of hiring good employees. For eg. for a sales job, you absolutely have to do a personality test. If the test indicate that you are introverted and have bad people skills, that you are not likely to be a good hire. Is the personality test a universal test? No, it's not. But it helps.
    - phony_identity 19y ago
      It is you who does not understand statistics. If the 'top people' is a population with a higher than average IQ, then that is probably a useful thing to measure when trying to predict if someone is going to be a top person, even if not all high IQ people are top people and not all top people have high IQ. See Bayes. Also, if you were coming to this situation with no prior knowledge that IQ means intelligence (that is, imagine that you didn't know what the term IQ means) then you could suspect that its correlation with 'top people' might not be causative. The trouble is, you live and work in the real world, and so have seen smart and not-so-smart people at work. So you have strong reason to suspect that the arrow of causality points from IQ, not towards it. Intelligence is not the only thing, but it's important and it can be measured.
  - cwilbur 19y ago
    There's no evidence one way or another, because there's no clear objective definition of "a good employee." For some of the jobs I've had, a willingness to think independently and critically -- far more important in a lot of cases than a high IQ -- was an active detriment.
run4yourlives 19y ago
That they can't hire the right people. Seriously, employers that are able to "feel" out the right people don't need tests, they'll go with their gut instincts, just like smart business people. Employers that give IQ tests usually lack this skill and have been burned because of it. I wouldn't want to work at a place that I couldn't trust to find high quality colleagues for me to build with. (This from a person that naturally scores in the 130's in IQ tests)
- keiretsu 19y ago
  hiring based on "feel" is like trading based on "feel". My back hurts. Damn, short this stock. Oh god. I feel alive whenever i see this stock. Buy! it's always good to base your hiring on something that is testable. Call me crazy but hiring is a long-term continuous process. It's best to have a program that's testable and verifiable, rather than simply be based on gut feel.
  - run4yourlives 19y ago
    You aren't hiring robots. You're hiring people. If you want to be analytical about it, you'll end up hiring the person that tells you what you want to hear the best. That's not usually the person you want.

what does it say about the employer?

npk 19y ago

That they don't really understand statistics.

keiretsu 19y ago
so you are inferring that there is enough statistical evidence to prove the hypothesis that a high iq person does not make for a good employee.
- npk 19y ago
  You're falling into a trap. Using the vocabulary of statistics does not mean you are thinking statistically. The classic refute, "correlation does not imply causation," applies here. I bet that the top people at top companies have high IQs, this does not mean that a high IQ person makes a top employee. I'm assuming you're hiring someone at a high level for a small company. Performing an IQ test is too much effort for not enough gain. As a result, you are performing a reverse IQ test. Intelligent people, asked to take an IQ test to join a one person startup, will view it as a waste of their time, and walk away. Go ahead, ask for SAT score. The most useful aspect of SAT score is in establishing company culture. It seems to me that you want to form a company where employess are the top grads from top universities. This is a classic, and successful model for hiring people. Asking potentital employess to take an IQ test will harm you in the end.
  - keiretsu 19y ago
    see my comment below. I'm not planning to ask them to take a full blown iq tests. Just those "iq games" that i find are empirically good in classifying the smart from the non-smart
    - run4yourlives 19y ago
      Good luck to you. Seriously, it already appears that you have made up your mind and don't need any more of our advice. 3 separate people have pointed out why IQ test are a bad idea, yet you are still not convinced. There is not much else to say except good luck.
      - keiretsu 19y ago
        ok fine. if iq tests are such a bad idea, what verifiable tests are there that can be used to classify a good employee and a bad employee? I'm sorry but gut feel just doesn't cut it.
        abstractbill 19y ago
        The belief that there could be a universal test that maps a person onto some scalar value ranging from "good employee" to "bad employee" says a lot about the belief's holder. Sorry if that sounds snarky - it's just the way I feel.
        keiretsu 19y ago
        it's called probability. It just depends on how you define a good employee and a bad employee and based on that definition, you can prepare a hiring program and test if that program works. Almost all successful companies have some sort of verifiable hiring programs. facebook has their puzzles as a screener test. It is not a universal test but it helps. If you are able to solve the puzzles, there should be a higher probability that you are a better employee to the company than someone who can't solve the puzzles. All they need to do is verify if those puzzles are good at screening good hires. If yes, well done then. They've got themselves a great hiring tool. I'm not asking for the one almighty test that can screen if an employee is good or bad. I'm asking for tests that can help in increasing the probability of hiring good employees. For eg. for a sales job, you absolutely have to do a personality test. If the test indicate that you are introverted and have bad people skills, that you are not likely to be a good hire. Is the personality test a universal test? No, it's not. But it helps.
  - phony_identity 19y ago
    It is you who does not understand statistics. If the 'top people' is a population with a higher than average IQ, then that is probably a useful thing to measure when trying to predict if someone is going to be a top person, even if not all high IQ people are top people and not all top people have high IQ. See Bayes. Also, if you were coming to this situation with no prior knowledge that IQ means intelligence (that is, imagine that you didn't know what the term IQ means) then you could suspect that its correlation with 'top people' might not be causative. The trouble is, you live and work in the real world, and so have seen smart and not-so-smart people at work. So you have strong reason to suspect that the arrow of causality points from IQ, not towards it. Intelligence is not the only thing, but it's important and it can be measured.
- cwilbur 19y ago
  There's no evidence one way or another, because there's no clear objective definition of "a good employee." For some of the jobs I've had, a willingness to think independently and critically -- far more important in a lot of cases than a high IQ -- was an active detriment.

run4yourlives 19y ago

That they can't hire the right people. Seriously, employers that are able to "feel" out the right people don't need tests, they'll go with their gut instincts, just like smart business people. Employers that give IQ tests usually lack this skill and have been burned because of it. I wouldn't want to work at a place that I couldn't trust to find high quality colleagues for me to build with. (This from a person that naturally scores in the 130's in IQ tests)

keiretsu 19y ago
hiring based on "feel" is like trading based on "feel". My back hurts. Damn, short this stock. Oh god. I feel alive whenever i see this stock. Buy! it's always good to base your hiring on something that is testable. Call me crazy but hiring is a long-term continuous process. It's best to have a program that's testable and verifiable, rather than simply be based on gut feel.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  You aren't hiring robots. You're hiring people. If you want to be analytical about it, you'll end up hiring the person that tells you what you want to hear the best. That's not usually the person you want.