But this falls on the maker of every test, making testing much more costly (and thus much less used) than it has it be
So every job I’ve ever applied for required tests, and all of them looked more like general intelligence tests than specific (the standard brain teasers about buckets of water, geometry questions,etc all for statistical programming jobs). With the exception of one insurance company (who disguised their geometry questions as programming questions), none of these companies tried to pretend these were directly applicable to job performance. To my knowledge, none of these companies have been sued.
If anything, my experience is that testing is overused. A recent hire I wanted (who I’ve worked with before, and who is very competent at exactly what we need) was refused on the basis poor performance on two tests. I’ve consulted for several companies that have expressed that they hired me as a consultant because their HR’s testing procedures have made staffing too inflexible.
I’m fairly confident that you’d have an easier time in court of proving the relevance of g (or proxies for it) to statistical programming than to, say, firefighting.
So every job I’ve ever applied for required tests, and all of them looked more like general intelligence tests than specific (the standard brain teasers about buckets of water, geometry questions,etc all for statistical programming jobs).
So, a handful of brain teasers issued and interpreted by non-experts is surely inferior to an IQ test. So why don’t we have nationally recognized agencies that administer IQ tests, that they then report to potential employers at your request, like the SAT and colleges?
(And it is unfortunate about that hire- organizations should make the most of local knowledge like that, but often fail to. Hiring people as consultants might be more efficient, though, especially if you know the person has the skills for the job you need done now but might not have the skills for the next job you need.)
So every job I’ve ever applied for required tests, and all of them looked more like general intelligence tests than specific (the standard brain teasers about buckets of water, geometry questions,etc all for statistical programming jobs). With the exception of one insurance company (who disguised their geometry questions as programming questions), none of these companies tried to pretend these were directly applicable to job performance. To my knowledge, none of these companies have been sued.
If anything, my experience is that testing is overused. A recent hire I wanted (who I’ve worked with before, and who is very competent at exactly what we need) was refused on the basis poor performance on two tests. I’ve consulted for several companies that have expressed that they hired me as a consultant because their HR’s testing procedures have made staffing too inflexible.
I’m fairly confident that you’d have an easier time in court of proving the relevance of g (or proxies for it) to statistical programming than to, say, firefighting.
So, a handful of brain teasers issued and interpreted by non-experts is surely inferior to an IQ test. So why don’t we have nationally recognized agencies that administer IQ tests, that they then report to potential employers at your request, like the SAT and colleges?
(And it is unfortunate about that hire- organizations should make the most of local knowledge like that, but often fail to. Hiring people as consultants might be more efficient, though, especially if you know the person has the skills for the job you need done now but might not have the skills for the next job you need.)