Should I.Q tests be allowed for employment screening?

DavinMochrie · Sep 7, 2008

I would withdraw my application from employment there.

I wouldn't sue or go on TV about my rights.........because that's just not what we should do in my country.

But you can tell - that company would be a nightmare to work for. Money is not everything imo.

BigBadWlf · Sep 7, 2008

Remember the only thing an IQ test actually measures is how well one does on an IQ test

Two real world examples come to mind.

The first happened years ago when I was in college and working with one of my advisor. In addition to her teaching she was just hired as the psychologist for the local school system and worked extensively with their special education program. There was one young man who was graduating form the program, he was turning 21 and as such out of the school system. We were doing his last evaluation which largely consisted of ensuring that his on going needs and the needs of his family will be met. We got to meet with him and his family and found out that for the last three years this developmentally disabled individual had been running his own lawn care business. He had eight employees, he filed taxes, he did payroll, he wrote his own advertising copy, and now that the would be out of school he had plans to double his employees and move into the snow removal business to keep his employees working during the winter. We inquired as to how much help he was receiving form his parents and the answer was none. Remember this young man had an IQ approximately 65. He obviously was not developmentally disabled despite what his IQ score indicated.

The second is more related to the OP and not so much IQ tests.

In early summer I was in Family Video wandering the aisles when two young women came in to apply for a job. It is important to note that they were high school graduates, it is a requirement, as only individuals over the age of 18 can deal with the adult movie section. They were sitting at a play table in the kids section filling out the employment applications. I overheard one whisper to the other, Boy, this is hard. Curiosity getting the better of me I wandered past and saw that the application included a test. The girls were on different pages of the test one page had 4 math problems on it involving making change. The other page involved putting a list of movies into alphabetical order. I thought that the this is hard comment was sarcastic until I realized that both of them were actually struggling to complete the test.

Washington · Sep 7, 2008

BigBadWlf said:
Remember the only thing an IQ test actually measures is how well one does on an IQ test

Pretty much word for word the same definition we were given years ago in my first psych course.

Robbie_James_Francis · Sep 7, 2008

I think and IQ test would be fine in this case if it weren't for the fact that the OP specified that the test has nothing to do with the ability to do the job. IMO 'discrimination' is acceptable only in terms of judging the ability of the candidate to do the job. So if I applied to be a Christian pastor, I would expect them to say no on the basis that I'm an atheist but not on the basis that I have blue eyes.

Foolish_Fool · Sep 7, 2008

Braunwyn said:
I'm not following how a person with tons of experience and the usual education required for highly technical and R&D positions could be dumb.

Because when you're doing something that hasn't been done before you have to make it up as you go along. Anybody can stay awake for a few classes and memorize some equations or do the same thing repeatedly, but very few people have the natural aptitude to make something new actually work. The best engineers and techs that I know are the ones who throw away their books and just start tinkering.

Braunwyn · Sep 7, 2008

Foolish_Fool said:
Because when you're doing something that hasn't been done before you have to make it up as you go along. Anybody can stay awake for a few classes and memorize some equations or do the same thing repeatedly, but very few people have the natural aptitude to make something new actually work. The best engineers and techs that I know are the ones who throw away their books and just start tinkering.

Maybe we understand R&D differently. We mostly likely do. I work in R&D in pharma and those folk with tons of experience have tons of it because they have proven track records of innovation, otherwise they wouldn't...have tons of experience. I'm not trying to be redundant and circular here but that's how it's playing out in my mind. Of course I'm pretty new to industry and I may not know what I'm talking about.

I can certainly uderstand that a person with 'only' an education may not be innovative. (the experience thing still has me for a loop). There are all kinds of ways to be a sucessful student without necessarily being innovative but honestly, I'd be at a loss to site examples given my experience. Also, I don't know if an IQ test can account for what it takes to think outside the box that produces results, which is usually a priority for most companies interested in profit.

I have a couple of examples off the top of my head. I work with a lot of people coming over from MIT. All, without a doubt, are pretty darn brilliant. One guy I knew got so caught up in the small stuff that he was let go. Despite his obvious intelligence (blew me away) he wasn't really able to contribute to the fast-paced enviroment that's always screaming for new ideas. It's a marathon and the ability to prioritize and see the big picture is important.

Another example is a project I'm involved with right now. A great scientist comes up with some interesting ideas, we have a meeting and put together an agenda. This man seems to know every darn thing a person could ask about IRT to his field but when I began the grunt work, on my own, I found that his ideas weren't all that new and found an obscure paper where the exact same work was already done. My analytical nature drives me to anally research so now I've saved the dept much money and time not reinventing the wheel (so to speak).

An employer won't go wrong with a highly intelligent, experience employee that also has common sense and drive.

Holy Roller · Sep 7, 2008

Sometimes an employer is seeking an employee that has more going for himself than just job qualifications. I mean, an employer may be looking for some stimulating conversation during lunch break. Or, the employer wants a sort of mantelpiece he can show off to potential clients and vendors and a high I.Q. employee will be just that.

Braunwyn · Sep 7, 2008

Holy Roller said:
Sometimes an employer is seeking an employee that has more going for himself than just job qualifications. I mean, an employer may be looking for some stimulating conversation during lunch break. Or, the employer wants a sort of mantelpiece he can show off to potential clients and vendors and a high I.Q. employee will be just that.

Indeed. When I was a RA during grad school I was more of a paid friend/ear than a RA. We spent more time waxing poetic about science than actually doing science, which was fine.

wanderingone · Sep 7, 2008

Holy Roller said:
Suppose your husband applies for a job, but when he goes in for the interview, human resources says he has to fill out an I.Q. test first. He asks if it's pass/fail, and human resources says yes.
Furthermore, she says your husband has to score at least a 130 on the test (Stanford Binet test), which means his intelligence has to be in the upper 98% of the general populace if he wants to get this job!
He mentions to human resources that he meets the qualification and has the experience for the job, and that the I.Q. test may be a form of intelligence discrimination.
Do you agree?
The job description does not in any way relate to any of the material administered in the intelligence test.

For some jobs it's more likely for employers to want folks who aren't that bright. Either way many employers use a variety of tests and surveys to decide who they will hire. It often seems to have nothing to do with the tasks to be performed. I don't think you get to say it's "intelligence" discrimination.

I also don't understand why you are only addressing this to people who have husbands. Why wouldn't reader or the reader's wife be applying a job?

Foolish_Fool · Sep 8, 2008

Braunwyn said:
Maybe we understand R&D differently. We mostly likely do. I work in R&D in pharma and those folk with tons of experience have tons of it because they have proven track records of innovation, otherwise they wouldn't...have tons of experience. I'm not trying to be redundant and circular here but that's how it's playing out in my mind. Of course I'm pretty new to industry and I may not know what I'm talking about.

I can certainly uderstand that a person with 'only' an education may not be innovative. (the experience thing still has me for a loop). There are all kinds of ways to be a sucessful student without necessarily being innovative but honestly, I'd be at a loss to site examples given my experience. Also, I don't know if an IQ test can account for what it takes to think outside the box that produces results, which is usually a priority for most companies interested in profit.

I have a couple of examples off the top of my head. I work with a lot of people coming over from MIT. All, without a doubt, are pretty darn brilliant. One guy I knew got so caught up in the small stuff that he was let go. Despite his obvious intelligence (blew me away) he wasn't really able to contribute to the fast-paced enviroment that's always screaming for new ideas. It's a marathon and the ability to prioritize and see the big picture is important.

Another example is a project I'm involved with right now. A great scientist comes up with some interesting ideas, we have a meeting and put together an agenda. This man seems to know every darn thing a person could ask about IRT to his field but when I began the grunt work, on my own, I found that his ideas weren't all that new and found an obscure paper where the exact same work was already done. My analytical nature drives me to anally research so now I've saved the dept much money and time not reinventing the wheel (so to speak).

An employer won't go wrong with a highly intelligent, experience employee that also has common sense and drive.

Perhaps our perspectives and industries are different. I've had to train lots of people and there is a huge difference. There are people who have been in the optics business for as long as I've been alive who just can't perform certain tasks. On the other hand I've had completely green people who don't even know that laser is an acronymn and they'll be up and running very quickly and even making good suggestions. It's always funny to watch them argue with the senior physicists because they are usually right. Perhaps I'm a bit jaded from working for government contractors but the higher up you go, the more removed from reality people become.

cantata · Sep 8, 2008

My boyfriend did general intelligence tests for several potential employers when he was looking for work.

Personally, I can't see a problem with it. Some roles require employees to be highly adaptable and capable of picking up new skills very quickly. Sometimes a job description contains more criteria than most candidates could reasonably fill (such as a very long list of software that the candidate should be able to use). It's difficult to test whether someone would be able to quickly learn to use new tools, but an intelligence test is a reasonable start. In such a case, the test would not be directly relevant to the particular role, but it would give potential employers an impression of candidates' more general abilities.

MarcusHill · Sep 8, 2008

IQ tests are no measure of anything worth knowing (no, this isn't sour grapes, I was usually measured in the 160-180 range). I don't see why any test should be administered as a barrier to employment unless it actually measures some quality the employer wants.

cantata · Sep 8, 2008

MarcusHill said:
IQ tests are no measure of anything worth knowing (no, this isn't sour grapes, I was usually measured in the 160-180 range). I don't see why any test should be administered as a barrier to employment unless it actually measures some quality the employer wants.

Well, I mean, what employer doesn't want people who are able to do IQ tests? In all seriousness, although people are inclined to downplay them, they do test a range of genuinely useful skills.

keith99 · Sep 8, 2008

Has anyone here ever actually been involved in the hiring process other than from the end of being the one looking for a job? When I was the assistant manager of a programming group I was. We put one ad in the Los Angeles times and were flooded with applicants. I mean ove 100 applicants for one or two positions. Part of the ad was 'Excellent communications skills required'. My first pass through resumes was to look for obvious and blatant errors of grammar. I'm not talking about technical flaws like incomplete sentences (which often show up in lists of skills). I'm talking about multiple mistakes of the kind where it either jumps out at you or you have to go back to reread the sentence to try to figure it out. About one half of all applicants were filtered out at that point.

Using an IQ test to filter out applicants makes sense for many positions. Many firms that use things like this set the bar pretty low relative to the job in question, but then use the results for the order of interviews. Higher the score sooner the interview. And of course once the position is filled it is filled and those not interviewed miss out. (BTW starting a sentence with 'and' is considered improper and is a perfect example of the kind of thing that I did NOT count to filter out applicants, though I would never do it on a resume. It can be a minor, even unnoticed but still real down tic against the applicant).

billwald · Sep 8, 2008

Statistical data only applies to groups, never to individuals. It is improper to use an IQ test for hiring.

Washington · Sep 9, 2008

billwald said:
Statistical data only applies to groups, never to individuals. It is improper to use an IQ test for hiring.

Really!! and why not? Maybe a certain IQ range is relevant to a job, just as the judge found in the news item I previously posted (post #5).

While statistical data may be used to create charts and scales, this doesn't mean that one cannot use them to find out where a specific figure falls within it's parameters.

Washington · Sep 9, 2008

MarcusHill said:
IQ tests are no measure of anything worth knowing (no, this isn't sour grapes, I was usually measured in the 160-180 range). I don't see why any test should be administered as a barrier to employment unless it actually measures some quality the employer wants.

To be honest, I find it difficult to believe that someone who lists himself as a "University Lecturer," with an IQ of 160 - 180, would make such an ignorant statement. Or maybe I should find it difficult to believe that someone who who make such an ignorant statement would be a college lecturer with an IQ of 160 - 180, which is a HUGE range there, MH. ( I tend to regard the last as the more likely.)

stan1980 · Sep 9, 2008

At a previous company, we were heavily using some house software written specifically for our company, it was completely out of date DOS based software, and an absolute pain to teach, as it was all text based and it used to crash all the time if you were typed in the wrong commands on the wrong screens. Getting to grips with it was almost trial and error. Clearly, brighter people, or people who score well in IQ tests, are going to get to grips with it far more quickly which allows you to get on with your own work. Less bright people would have a much harder time with it, they'd get frustrated, you'd get frustrated, so in situations like this, I would advocate IQ tests to weed out the non methodical minds.

There are tonnes more examples too, of why an IQ test might be useful, I've got to say though, most jobs are easy and pretty non-challenging when you get used to them, so personality I would imagine is the biggest criteria a boss will look at when hiring permanent staff.

MarcusHill · Sep 9, 2008

Washington said:
To be honest, I find it difficult to believe that someone who lists himself as a "University Lecturer," with an IQ of 160 - 180, would make such an ignorant statement. Or maybe I should find it difficult to believe that someone who who make such an ignorant statement would be a college lecturer with an IQ of 160 - 180, which is a HUGE range there, MH. ( I tend to regard the last as the more likely.)

Wrong on several levels:

I don't see how claiming tests used as barriers for employment should actually measure something relevant to the job is "ignorant".

Even if it were ignorant, intelligent people make stupid statements all the time. I know I do - though this wasn't one of them.

Most IQ tests are pretty poor. They are also generally good discriminators with a fair degree of agreement towards the middle ranges, but in most cases aren't really intended for the extremes (in some cases, "160+" is the top of their measurement scale). I never bothered taking any tests intended to discriminate closely at the top end because I think IQ is a crock - even more so after looking at the difficulty of defining "intelligence" when I was doing research into mathematical modelling of intelligent decision making processes.

I really don't care whether you believe my job is what I claim it is. Again, it shouldn't make any difference as I'm not trying to make some sort of argument from authority - I mentioned the IQ thing because it's relevant to the thread, you're the one who brought up my job. Although I'm not stupid enough to actually plaster my details on a public web forum, I do post under my real name. If you're really that bothered, it shouldn't be too hard to find me from stuff I've said on these fora.

Should I.Q tests be allowed for employment screening?

is it right for an employer to discriminate based on intelligence?

Yes. The employer just wants to make sure he gets gifted employees. Heâs allowed to do that.

No. The test is a form of intelligence discrimination. The employer must go by qualifications.

The employer can have prospects take the test, but itâs still unethicalâ¦

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Yes. The employer just wants to make sure he gets gifted employees. Heâs allowed to do that.

The employer can have prospects take the test, but itâs still unethicalâ¦