HACKER Q&A
📣 amichail

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


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.

  👤 rickcarlino Accepted Answer ✓
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.
👤 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?
👤 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}

👤 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.
👤 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 ...

👤 crummy
according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414135 IQ tests aren't truly banned in the US
👤 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.
👤 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
👤 billybuckwheat
How do you define hard technical questions or difficult questions?
👤 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.