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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

...if you want to hire good knowledge workers, an IQ test and a work-sample test will get you further than any set of expensive status-signalling criteria ever could.

I have seen data supporting that. However it could also land you in court for discrimination, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co..

Most companies are risk adverse, and hence an IQ test as an admission criteria is verboten.

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I believe only the army is still allowed to do it.

My understanding is that anyone can do it if they provide a validation study showing that the IQ test directly correlates to job performance and doesn't discriminate on other protected statuses. My understanding is also that the number of companies that have done this is as close to 0 as makes no odds.

No, it can discriminate on other protected statuses as long as you can prove that the test has a direct correlation to work performance. (Actually, the decisions require 'a strong basis in evidence' of 'business necessity', which you would demonstrate by showing a strong correlation.)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricci_v._DeStefano for the state of the art in I/O psych/job placement/etc.

In practice, the race baiting laws only matter for professions where black employability passes the giggle test, and any topical test can be easily designed to correlate very highly with IQ.

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