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Ask HN: Why does US allow hard tech interview questions if it bans IQ tests?

5 points by amichail ↗ HN
Tech interviewers often claim that they ask difficult questions to gain insight into how candidates think and how they handle reaching their limits.

However, this reasoning can sound like plausible deniability. How can you determine whether the real intent is to assess your IQ indirectly without explicitly administering an IQ test?

And why does the US permit this practice to continue if IQ tests are banned?

P.S. While IQ tests are not strictly banned in the US, using them opens up a company to potential lawsuits.

20 comments

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tjr
It would be nice if there were some sort of standardized tests for skill competency. Like an employer could state, "we need someone who can handle C at level 5, JavaScript at level 3, and Fortran77 at level 9", and leave it to a third-party to test the candidate in a fair way.

Then the interviews would really be about cultural fit and project interest, not trying to prove if the candidate _actually_ knows C, JavaScript, and Fortran77 well enough.

\end{slightly-off-topic}

taylodl
Come up with a way to assess problem-solving skills and communication skills and you might have a real winner!

Surely somebody has tried to turn this into a business? Not a certification, but a skill assessment that gives you a level. Even better is if there was an AI where you could provide snippets of your C code, JavaScript code, and Fortran77 code and figure out what level you need in order to effectively and meaningfully work with it.

gogurt2000
Oddly enough I talked to a lawyer last night about this. He explained that all of his applicants have passed the bar, so he can be reasonably confident in their ability to practice law. Instead his interviews are about if he can stand working with this person day to day.
bell-cot
IANAL, nor in HR - but I'd assume that "directly related to their ability to perform the job" is the key.

If you're hiring rocket scientists, I'd bet you could ask 'em some tortuously difficult questions about rocket science. Or brain surgeons about brain surgery, or nuclear physicists about nuclear physics, or ...

amichail
Top software companies try to hire overqualified candidates though.
rickcarlino
I’ve had similar questions about job postings that ask for “native speakers”, which is only attainable in most cases by means of ethnicity, national origin or both.
gogurt2000
IQ tests as part of the hiring process aren't illegal in the US, but they aren't used because it puts the company at risk of discrimination lawsuits.

The validity of IQ tests is debated and their history is checkered: they've been used by eugenicists and racists to support their views and statistically minorities under perform on them.

It's not hard to imagine someone purposefully writing an "IQ test" that's racially biased by focusing on things that wealthy white men know. An infamous example from the SAT in the 70's (and allegedly used later as well) that favors those familiar with rowing (aka: "crew"), a largely Ivy League sport:

RUNNER: MARATHON A) envoy: embassy B) martyr: massacre C) oarsman: regatta D) horse: stable

So it's fine if hard tech interviews are actually trying to assess your IQ, but if they're racially biased it's a problem.

jazz9k
So there is no way to know about rowing unless you are wealthy and white?
defrost
In the context of the 1970s ...

The Oxbridge UK and US Ivy league rowing shell sport was largely confined to wealthy private schools and universities and uncommon outside those domains.

To "know" about the sport in detail you either had to take part, be adjacent, make a study of the behavioural activities of that class, or read a lot of Agatha Christie et al literature that referenced the sport.

Rowing shells has been part of the Summer Olympics since 1900, the argument can be made that the working class prior to widespread TV broadcasts didn't get a lot of Olympic exposure.

There were other ways of stumbling into an exposure but they weren't exactly commonplace.

Rowing a boat with oars was common across the globe.

devonnull
Didn't you post something like this recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716437)? Have you had a bad experience or three with hard interview questions?
yongjik
On top of that, judging from submission record, OP seems to be very interested in genetic heritability of intelligence ...
billybuckwheat
How do you define hard technical questions or difficult questions?
jethronethro
Do you expect interviewers (in the US or elsewhere) to only lob you easy questions? I've interviewed for tech jobs in a few places over the years -- Canada, the US, France, and the UK -- and each time I was asked more than one difficult question. I didn't once get the impression that the interviewers were testing my IQ.
Doctor-R
Triplebyte developed an online assessment technology for programmers. The company was acquired by Karat. Their website has claims of enormous improvements to the hiring process. Previously, you could take their tests and use the score to add to your job application. https://connect.karat.com/tb-welcome
tptacek
Because it doesn't ban IQ tests. Most companies don't use IQ tests, because they suck, not because they're a forbidden hiring secret.