
Ask HN: IQ Tests for Job Interviews? - 49531
I am a software engineer with about 5 years of experience doing mostly JavaScript fullstack. I&#x27;ve now had 2 of what I would call IQ tests, basic pattern recognition kinds of things. Has anyone else experienced this? Is this even legal?<p>It feels incredibly invasive and I cannot see how it has any relevance to the jobs I am applying for.<p>For context I am a US citizen working in the US.
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jimrhods23
It's illegal.

relevant case information here: [https://www.bungie.net/en-
US/Forums/Post/208397364?sort=0&pa...](https://www.bungie.net/en-
US/Forums/Post/208397364?sort=0&page=0)

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jjgreen
Very useful metric, whenever you're asked to do one you know your potential
employer is an idiot, so walk away.

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usgroup
I think that it’s illegal in the US if it is specifically an IQ test.
Otherwise, if it’s basically an IQ test but not called an IQ test then it’s
not illegal. Eg a logic type test or a mental maths test.

IQ is very interesting on the first order and very flawed on the second order,
and makes for a super interesting read. Read these for contrast:

Bell Curve

Mismeasure of man

Or if you’re lazy find each author speak about it on YouTube.

The central issue with testing like this is that:

1\. It works to some extent especially if you don’t know anything else about a
candidate.

2\. It’s misused as a synonym for general intelligence.

3\. The false negative rate is high. I.e. scoring less than some other
candidate means nothing a very large portion of the time.

4\. Results are often strongly correlated to notional race.

5\. An actual IQ test (eg WAIS IV) is hard to administer. All other tests
claim legitimacy by being merely correlated to them.

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kypro
I was interested in finding out my personality type last weekend. I suspected
for a while I was INTP, and the test confirmed this. I did a little Googling
interested in which groups have the highest intelligence and are most
successful, etc. Apparently INTP's have the highest IQs of all personality
types yet for some reason we seem to be the bottom earners. I can only speak
for myself, but I know my introverted, aloof demeanour isn't well suited for
most work places, certainly not for leadership roles.

Perhaps someone with a high IQ is more able to solve a given task on their
own, but often it's more important you can work well with others and
communicate clearly. I know personally I'd swap my 130~ IQ for 100 if I had
good communication skills any day.

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bjourne
It is not an IQ test but a subordination test. The point of the test is to
test if you are willing to jump through arbitrary hoops in order to serve your
employer. I.e refusing to submit to their test but instead referring to a
verified score of 130 on WAIS will put your application, not on the top, but
on the bottom of the pile.

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evoneutron
That's basically what every white-boarding coding exercise is - pattern
recognition based on computer science trivia. It's not illegal - every tech
company does it.

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fucking_tragedy
Strict IQ tests will select for a certain subset of the population, that's
usually divided by socio-economic lines which highly correlate with race.
That's not to say that certain races have intelligence correlations, but that
IQ tests test for knowledge that is diffused along socio-economic lines.

You can look at white boarding as proxy IQ tests or aptitude tests, the latter
of which are customized for the role in question. I'm on the fence when it
comes to deciding which bucket white boarding falls into.

