You've made a good comment. I can't specifically point you to a study with research or engineering (though I know there has been some that involved academic res

You've made a good comment. I can't specifically point you to a study with research or engineering (though I know there has been some that involved academic research performance as an outcome). The finding tends to be that 1) g is more, not less, important for jobs with higher complexity and 2) job knowledge acts as a mediator between the predicted relationship of g and work performance. You are right to think that the results would be different if the test was just given on the general population. It's an academic consideration that tends to resolve itself in the field. And you'll never hear me, or anyone else, suggest that g should be the only predictor for just the reason you describe. Biographical data (e.g., years experience, work history) is much better first hurdle.