To begin with, and with genuinely no intention of being boastful or sounding arrogant, the scores of the IQ tests I have taken so far in my life are not exactly low. You can be certain that my motive for posting this is not that I got a bad score at some IQ test -on the contrary, I actually scored very high just yesterday when asked to take one after applying for a job.
But I know better than anyone that I am by no means the super-smart person that test claims I am. I often do silly things, sometimes mess things up at work, not to mention several unwise life decisions I've made. I don't know if I'm stupid (they/we never do!) , but I know I ain't as above average as that test result says I am.
Yet I wouldn't claim I reject the notion of IQ testing altogether. Several years ago I had the curiosity to pay MENSA to take the IQ test (and paying for something like that is actually a very good sign that you may be stupid), and I also got a pretty good score, similar to the one of the recent test -even though the too tests were not at all alike. This kind of consistency may indicate that those tests actually measure something pretty reliably -definitely not intelligence itself, but something (perhaps an ability to score good at IQ tests).
So my motive for this post is neither some low score I got, nor to doubt about the reliability of IQ tests measuring something. This posts is to cast some doubt on whether it is ethical to test the intelligence (if we suppose that IQ tests actually test that) of your candidates as an employer -and it doesn't seem to be.
If someone is actually pretty unintelligent for a particular job, that becomes apparent in the interview. To demand that your prospective employees take an intelligence test (that is, IF such a thing actually exists) merely sets a burden to the ones that may score pretty low yet would otherwise fit fine for the job. Testing the intelligence is not only unfair for low-scorers that otherwise fit for the job, but based on erroneous assumptions as well: who told you that your employee will use the full range of his intelligence at the workplace?
Even we, software developers, whose profession has a reputation of needing a higher-than-average intelligence, do not use our full mental capabilities at our everyday work. A "highly intelligent" developer would not be noticeably better than an average one in debugging a Weld-exception after updating the version of Wildfly. The nature of many tasks is such that a high intelligence would not play a big role. So, unless you are looking for some chief engineering architect for Google, a high intelligence does not make much difference than an average one, and in some cases even a lower-than-average might suffice.
I won't even elaborate in detail for selecting prospective employees for supposedly "unskilled" professions (the very notion that "unskilled" professions even exist is a classist myth to justify outrageously low wages). It would be at the same time shameless and idiotic to test for the intelligence of candidates for low-wage workplaces.
Even if someone applying for a low-wage job is intelligent, he will most likely deliberately be inefficient since you don't pay well; there is no motive in being an efficient slave of the bosses. And even when it comes to someone being unintelligent, this kind of testing might only be used to justify horrible working conditions -as if someone born with lower capabilities does not already have enough of a burden, they should live a true hell at their workplace and have economic trouble too.
Testing for the intelligence or, more accurately, what supposedly is indicative of the intelligence of a candidate, has another issue as well: is makes it even more stressful and painful to apply for a new job, even for good scorers. I, a high scorer of IQ-tests (which are NOT intelligence tests), got very stressed when noticed that I had to take an IQ test for that job. And this, even though I already have a job and I am in no hurry of getting a new one. I can't even imagine the stress if I had to take IQ tests while desperately looking for a job to pay the rent.
Nor I can imagine the depression a jobless worker might fall into, if they were desperately looking for a new job not to get evicted, and got a low score. Why the funk would you put your candidates through this? Are you that inhumane that have thought of such issues and ignored them, or are you that stupid that you didn't even think of them in the first place?
If someone is that stupid that is unsuitable for a job, you will notice during the interview. It is needless to put your candidates through such stress (and low self-esteem if they happen to score lower than the average), and idiotic to sincerely believe that your employees use their full intelligence at the workplace. Someone with an IQ of 120 will not necessarily use the whole of it and be more productive than someone with an IQ of 90. That is, if the IQ tests actually measure intelligence.
I, a good scorer, find this idiotic. I will happily accept that if you blame my disagreement to my stupidity -thereby accepting my argument that such tests do not mean much.
