Is IQ test a thing during hiring in your country or industry?

Years ago, when I was still in tech, an interviewer asked me how to time something using burning rope, or something like that. Most have probably seen the puzzle.

I'd seen it before, but couldn't remember how to do it, and couldn't figure it out.

I said "Just tell me the answer."

He recommended me for hire anyway.

Months later I asked him why he asked such a ridiculous question. He said he wanted to know how I think. So I asked him, how do I think?

He didn't really have an answer. He either hadn't thought that far ahead while planning the interview, or didn't have enough information to tell him how I think, or he was too polite to say that I really just don't think.

A Swedish startup I'm talking to has both IQ and personality tests. Same for virtualy every other Swedish company I talked to in the past. Similar but to lesser extent for German companies. Some companies try to hide it until the final interview. I hate all of it.

Too easy to run afoul of the ADA and anti-discrimination laws in the US. I have refused to take nonsense tests like the Myers-Briggs, objecting by citing the ADA, and still got offers.

IQ tests do measure something, referred to as g, but it's far from clear that predicts job performance. When CEOs and politicians have to take IQ tests and get some minimum score maybe I'll play along.

Rare in the US from my experience. The only real exception I know is companies owned by the PE firm Vista Equity Partners, who all use such a test. The once ubiquitous Microsoft/Google logic puzzles seem to be mostly gone here as well.

I've never had an IQ test administered. Wish it was done more though – although I'm not sure it would legal here in the UK. I've never heard of anyone else having one done either.

I find most of the objections to IQ testing difficult to understand. IQ is statistically correlated to a lot of things you'd want to hire for. It's true that some groups do worse on intelligence tests so I suppose it would "discriminate" against them, but those groups also tend to do worse on examinations generally.

To object to IQ tests you basically need to object to all forms of education which are graded by formalised testing. If IQ tests discriminate against certain groups then education probably does so to an even greater extent since educational achievement is often linked to one's IQ + socioeconomic status.

The truth is you're always going to be discriminating against candidates during the hiring process since that's the entire point of it. Given this you might as well do it in the fairest way possible and IQ testing is probably one of the fairer ways all things considered.

That said, I'm biased here because I come from a bad background and went to bad schools, therefore did bad academically despite having a decently high IQ. It's less of a problem these days, but early on in my life / career it was annoying having to try to prove to people that I'm capable of things despite doing poorly academically as a product of my background.

I would acknowledge there are limitations to IQ testing though since IQ tests are simply tests of general intelligence. It's possible to have a high IQ but struggle socially or with specific skills. So if you're hiring for a role which requires good social skills a general IQ test might not be the best filter. Most jobs (such as software engineering) also require a decent amount of domain knowledge, in which case a candidates knowledge and experience should trump their IQ.

US citizen/resident here: I've been submitted to a lot of logic puzzles as a web and software developer--asking me to solve complex algorithmic problems I'd never work on in the actual job; that has been pretty common. However, I've only ever had to take (what was equivalent to) an IQ test once, when applying to a job at Dish network. I was so annoyed that I quit halfway through and withdrew my application.

I've had what they did not call an IQ test as part of pre-interview screening.

They also didn't call the personality test a personality test.

It has happened to me a few times over the years, one finance place in US, one in Singapore. It's a minority, but some places that think they're special / "we only hire the best", etc do it.

i've seen it at platforms similar to toptal (focus on top%) i think it's fair but i hate it because i score low at it, haha.

Never in my life

IQ is a thing during literally everything.