4 ms·

I've never had an IQ test administered. Wish it was done more though – although I'm not sure it would legal here in the UK. I've never heard of anyone else havi

by kypro 4y ago

I've never had an IQ test administered. Wish it was done more though – although I'm not sure it would legal here in the UK. I've never heard of anyone else having one done either. I find most of the objections to IQ testing difficult to understand. IQ is statistically correlated to a lot of things you'd want to hire for. It's true that some groups do worse on intelligence tests so I suppose it would "discriminate" against them, but those groups also tend to do worse on examinations generally. To object to IQ tests you basically need to object to all forms of education which are graded by formalised testing. If IQ tests discriminate against certain groups then education probably does so to an even greater extent since educational achievement is often linked to one's IQ + socioeconomic status. The truth is you're always going to be discriminating against candidates during the hiring process since that's the entire point of it. Given this you might as well do it in the fairest way possible and IQ testing is probably one of the fairer ways all things considered. That said, I'm biased here because I come from a bad background and went to bad schools, therefore did bad academically despite having a decently high IQ. It's less of a problem these days, but early on in my life / career it was annoying having to try to prove to people that I'm capable of things despite doing poorly academically as a product of my background. I would acknowledge there are limitations to IQ testing though since IQ tests are simply tests of general intelligence. It's possible to have a high IQ but struggle socially or with specific skills. So if you're hiring for a role which requires good social skills a general IQ test might not be the best filter. Most jobs (such as software engineering) also require a decent amount of domain knowledge, in which case a candidates knowledge and experience should trump their IQ.

usgroup 4y ago
First its worth baring in mind that actual IQ test requires a specialist and takes a long time, so most will use something that correlates with IQ scores instead. Simple counter argument is that IQ tests are not domain specific enough and not causative of domain specific capability even where complex reasoning is involved. Therefore, you should test closer to the role. E.g. for developers, a ranking of candidates by LeetCode scores will not be the same as the ranking of candidates by Raven progressive matrices -- they may correlate, but the differences are important and -- arguably -- one is more job specific than the other.
- kypro 4y ago
  > First its worth baring in mind that actual IQ test requires a specialist and takes a long time, so most will use something that correlates with IQ scores instead. This isn't an issue with IQ testing, it's an issue with testing generally. You'll find most objections to IQ testing can be applied to practically every form of testing. Also, IQ tests don't require a specialist, nor do they need to take a long time. Only the most accurate IQ testing would generally require these things. Normally when hiring you're just trying to get a rough sense of a candidates abilities. > Simple counter argument is that IQ tests are not domain specific enough and not causative of domain specific capability even where complex reasoning is involved. Therefore, you should test closer to the role. I agree. For most roles I wouldn't be in favour of just measuring IQ – and I did touch on the limitations of IQ in my comment. But regardless of its limitations it's still true that individuals with higher IQs tend to learn faster and be more intellectually capable in general. I could say something like, "LeetCode scores just selects for software engineers who can write a certain type of code, but doesn't measure one's ability to play well as a team or one's ability to view problems at higher levels of abstraction". The right thing to test depends entirely on what kind of abilities you're selecting for. If you need a software engineer to be adaptable and broadly capable then IQ is probably a good metric to consider (among others). And in my opinion instead of implicitly creating a selection process which favours the next white guy with a degree and 10+ years experience as a software engineer, it would be more equatable to consider people who show strong potential but perhaps have less experience.
NalNezumi 4y ago
I wish it was less administered considering it's history and its proponents often ulterior motives. Also because of the rigorous debunking of it by multiple, honest neruscientists I've worked with have shared with me. But I didn't ask the question for the purpose of a debate about its validity, so I think we can agree to disagree on our stance to it. But I want to thank you for sharing your opinion/bias and the background of it. I can see your point, as I also (due family circumstances) also struggled academically when I were younger and scoring high on those tests used to give me a confidence boost.

by kypro 4y ago

usgroup 4y ago

First its worth baring in mind that actual IQ test requires a specialist and takes a long time, so most will use something that correlates with IQ scores instead. Simple counter argument is that IQ tests are not domain specific enough and not causative of domain specific capability even where complex reasoning is involved. Therefore, you should test closer to the role. E.g. for developers, a ranking of candidates by LeetCode scores will not be the same as the ranking of candidates by Raven progressive matrices -- they may correlate, but the differences are important and -- arguably -- one is more job specific than the other.

kypro 4y ago
> First its worth baring in mind that actual IQ test requires a specialist and takes a long time, so most will use something that correlates with IQ scores instead. This isn't an issue with IQ testing, it's an issue with testing generally. You'll find most objections to IQ testing can be applied to practically every form of testing. Also, IQ tests don't require a specialist, nor do they need to take a long time. Only the most accurate IQ testing would generally require these things. Normally when hiring you're just trying to get a rough sense of a candidates abilities. > Simple counter argument is that IQ tests are not domain specific enough and not causative of domain specific capability even where complex reasoning is involved. Therefore, you should test closer to the role. I agree. For most roles I wouldn't be in favour of just measuring IQ – and I did touch on the limitations of IQ in my comment. But regardless of its limitations it's still true that individuals with higher IQs tend to learn faster and be more intellectually capable in general. I could say something like, "LeetCode scores just selects for software engineers who can write a certain type of code, but doesn't measure one's ability to play well as a team or one's ability to view problems at higher levels of abstraction". The right thing to test depends entirely on what kind of abilities you're selecting for. If you need a software engineer to be adaptable and broadly capable then IQ is probably a good metric to consider (among others). And in my opinion instead of implicitly creating a selection process which favours the next white guy with a degree and 10+ years experience as a software engineer, it would be more equatable to consider people who show strong potential but perhaps have less experience.

NalNezumi 4y ago

I wish it was less administered considering it's history and its proponents often ulterior motives. Also because of the rigorous debunking of it by multiple, honest neruscientists I've worked with have shared with me. But I didn't ask the question for the purpose of a debate about its validity, so I think we can agree to disagree on our stance to it. But I want to thank you for sharing your opinion/bias and the background of it. I can see your point, as I also (due family circumstances) also struggled academically when I were younger and scoring high on those tests used to give me a confidence boost.