Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Company Seeks US Workers With 125 IQ
CWmike writes "A Chinese IT outsourcing company that has started hiring new US computer science graduates to work in Shanghai requires prospective job candidates to demonstrate an IQ of 125 or above on a test it administers to sort out job applicants. In doing so, Bleum Inc. is following a hiring practice it applies to college recruits in China. But a new Chinese college graduate must score an IQ of 140 on the company's test. The lower IQ threshold for new US graduates reflects the fact that the pool of US talent available to the company is smaller than the pool of Chinese talent, Bleum said."
It's quite interesting how you can already predict how the world will change in the upcoming 10-20 years. The Chinese have the workforce (and hence more persons with high IQ), they're used to work hard for a living, and realistic economy. They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment. That is how US has been doing for many many years and loaning more and more money along the way.
IQ is highly overrated
In practice, it's almost useless...
Google tests are (way) better than IQ, but guess what Google found out: the best performers are the ones who have the lowest scores on their interviews.
IQ is not concerned with
- the candidate knows about the job
- the candidate has good (enough) people skills
- the candidate showers, shaves, etc
Guess they shouldn't bother and go straight here then http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/famous-people.html
how long until
Maybe the CIA and SETI should merge.
S.I.A.
CYA
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I think the article missed the reason they are hiring US people. "To speak English"
They aren't hiring people from the US to do CS jobs, they are hiring them to train their mainland China employees on how to communicate in English on the specific topic (computer science) that otherwise would be completely lost on regular "GREAT ENGLISH JOBS IN CHINA TESOL" type of people who may know English but know little about computer science.
the iq test tests very narrow ranges of iq, such as topological intelligence, the ability to manipulate 3D shapes in your head
but it has zero ability to measure something like social intelligence, the ability to manipulate people
i don't know that the ability to play 12 games of chess at the same time in your head is as valuable as the bedrock ability to communicate well, especially in the realm of business. the iq test certainly has its uses, but i think people ascribe way too much significance to it when determining someone's worth. someone with a very high traditional iq score can be quite useless in a business sense. the idea of something being useful is a relative term of course: you can be quite useful to an asocial pursuit that could very well be important to mankind in abstract ways with a traditional high iq
however, in your average business environment, the ability to simply and effectively communicate is a basic need, and pretty much trumps every other area of intelligence, since a business is nothing more than an efficient social organization. the more efficient a business is socially, the more efficient a business is economically, all else being equal. someone who gets well below 100 on a traditional iq test can be quite charismatic, persuasive, and capable of leading people. while someone who scores well above 100 on a traditional iq test can be unresponsive, aloof, distant, and confusing. so for the specific case of a business environment, a high traditional iq would seem not very useful at all
the ability to lead people is perhaps the most important iq of all possible areas of human intelligence, especially in business, but there is no test for it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Their banking industry is largely (if not all the way) corrupt. They take the savings of the people (who do indeed have a high savings rate), and then loan them out to largely state-owned enterprises. Who gets the money is largely politically directed, and has little to do with how likely it is the loan will be paid back.
Eventually those savers are going to want their money back, and it won't be there. So, it would be accurate to say that Chinese banks haven't collapsed their economy yet.
So, in the US, all the wasteful spending and foolish loans go to consumers. In China, they go towards state-owned businesses. I'm not sure one way or the other is better.
SirWired
Or at least the ability to write more interesting and useful posts. Seriously, what is with shit like this and why does it get moderated up? Are you trying to make a statement of some kind? Then make it, don't sit there and be obtuse about it. Or are you just trying to make yourself appear smart by "predicting" something that is quite obvious?
Seriously, this is worthless. You have something to say on using IQ tests, say it. Don't try and be obtuse as though that somehow makes your post more interesting.
This is especially surprising because the average slashdotter is doing the same crap that the average developer in India is doing.
Everything built today is short-term throw-away crap, often because the cultural, organisational, specification and documentation requirements won't translate (and the people involved in outsourcing don't care anyway).
Try discussing a real-world requirement with a well-spoken Englishman who has lived in the same area as you and experienced the same social and workplace culture and worked with you in the company on similar projects, then try communicating it to a man living in India who has experienced none of the above. Sit down with that man in a quiet room and prepare, say, an API together; now do the same with Bob from Bangalore over MSN. If you don't experience /any/ barrier then your need is so simple you'd be better off spending the next hour fulfilling it yourself.
Outsourcing is often used because the guy who got the bonus from apparently saving money in the short term knows that he'll be long gone by the time the shit hits the fan. Sometimes it works really well, but just as often it's a cruel joke. Its essential premise is: let's move work to an area with a greater supply of desperate workers and fewer workers protections because that'd be cheaper. It assumes that saving, say, $500,000 on the salary line of the budget for some project is not going to be offset by the disadvantages of not having someone with a local understanding. Communication takes longer, requests are more likely to be misinterpreted, there is no link between robustness of output and long-term advancement of the worker so his code is likely to suffer worse engineering practice, etc.
In some cases (where IQ's much higher), the worker may come up with solutions radically faster.
Or mull around over-engineering. Or not make much difference because the IQ test didn't identify skills applicable to the problem.
Hence it makes sense to link pay to IQ (at the start) and pay to IQ and results as time passes.
Why don't we link pay to colour? And any other number of immutable measures of an individual which have some correlation with intellectual performance.
Affirmative action for white dudes! Where can I sign up?
Hey, don't blame me because I figured out the system!
Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance.
Citation needed in the same way that citation is needed for water not being wet.
This is similar to college only accepting students with a score in the top 1% on the ACT/SAT - they can do well on a test, but that doesn't mean they are a good student.
That's true, though it also does not mean that they won't do well. It's a correlation - it doesn't automatically imply any specific outcome, just makes it more likely.
Feynman was an unconventional thinker is so very many ways. That was where a large part of his brilliance came from. He did not work in the world of numbers and equations, despite being a theoretical physicist. He was an examples kind of guy. He always had to have a physical example running in his head of a theory, and was always challenging people to provide them for him. As such he often found errors they could not, as he was mapping the problem in a completely different way.
It was his unconventional methods that made him so very brilliant, that lead him to his Nobel research. It was also part of why he was so good at teaching. He could explain things to undergrads that most people could only explain to others with advanced knowledge. He could do that because he saw through all the equations and such to the real essence of what the theory was, and he could come up with examples because that was what he did anyhow.
That an IQ test can't measure that well is a failing of the test, not of Feynman. The IQ test is one mold for how people can be smart, one particular way. He didn't fit that. So while the test rated him above average, because he was just so smart overall, it could not truly measure the depths of his genius.
It is a good lesson: Don't put too much stock in a single test. Tests test for particular things, they are not generalizable to everything.
As an analog, take a blood test for liver function. A simple test can be done to determine if your liver works right (just takes blood now, they don't need urine anymore as well). It does so reliably and well. However, that's all it does. Passing a LFT doesn't mean you are in good health, it means your liver is doing its job. It doesn't even mean your liver is undamaged, it just means that to whatever extent it has been damaged, it is still currently capable of filtering as needed.
The test is useful, but you must understand its limits for it to be so.
there are people with
1. high traditional iq, high social iq,
2. high traditional iq, low social iq,
3. low traditional iq, high social iq,
4. low traditional iq, low social iq
your inability to conceptualize more than one axis in the formulation of your comment doesn't speak very well for your iq, any iq
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance.
IQ does correlate with job performance, especially for higher-complexity jobs.
See, for example:
http://faculty.washington.edu/mdj3/MGMT580/Readings/Week%202/Schmidt.pdf
Actually, your real problem is that you don't understand what anecdotal evidence is.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There is no such thing as intelligence, only interest. - Richard Feynman (IIRC)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The biggest idiots I know are in Mensa. Just a bunch of incompetent morons who like taking IQ tests.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.