"No method of hiring is perfect, or even close to perfect, at picking the best workers—for instance, the relationship between IQ scores and eventual worker performance is modest to strong at best. But IQ tests are as good as anything that exists in the real world. And here’s one useful finding: you’re much better off forming your opinion of a worker based on her IQ score than basing it on a check of her references or (worst of all) a handwriting analysis.
In addition, it appears that IQ tests are even better at predicting outcomes when the job requires higher skills. Back in the 1960s, the Bell Telephone System gave its entry-level management trainees an IQ-type test along with a number of personality tests. Bell’s human resources division kept the test results a secret for two decades, even from other employees in the firm. When, after two decades, the company looked back to see which tests did the best job of predicting which trainees eventually rose the highest in the company hierarchy, the IQ-type test did the best job, beating out the personality tests. Looking across many studies of IQ in the elite workforce, one review says,
[G]eneral cognitive ability is the best single predictor of executive/professional-level performance, just as it is of performance in the middle to high-end range of the general workforce."
"In most of these studies that look at the relationship between IQ and worker quality, the quality measure is subjective: you ask the worker’s boss how well the worker did, and compare that judgment against the worker’s IQ score. Some studies can look at somewhat more objective measures, such as sales per year for a salesperson, or successful sorties for a military pilot. The more objective the measure, the stronger the relationship usually is between IQ and the measure of worker quality."
In addition, it appears that IQ tests are even better at predicting outcomes when the job requires higher skills. Back in the 1960s, the Bell Telephone System gave its entry-level management trainees an IQ-type test along with a number of personality tests. Bell’s human resources division kept the test results a secret for two decades, even from other employees in the firm. When, after two decades, the company looked back to see which tests did the best job of predicting which trainees eventually rose the highest in the company hierarchy, the IQ-type test did the best job, beating out the personality tests. Looking across many studies of IQ in the elite workforce, one review says,
[G]eneral cognitive ability is the best single predictor of executive/professional-level performance, just as it is of performance in the middle to high-end range of the general workforce."
"In most of these studies that look at the relationship between IQ and worker quality, the quality measure is subjective: you ask the worker’s boss how well the worker did, and compare that judgment against the worker’s IQ score. Some studies can look at somewhat more objective measures, such as sales per year for a salesperson, or successful sorties for a military pilot. The more objective the measure, the stronger the relationship usually is between IQ and the measure of worker quality."
Jones, Garret. (2015). Just a Test Score?. Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own. Retrieved on January 2, 2017 from http://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=23082&i=Chapter%201.html
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