Don’t you think we should be IQ Testing certain individuals before they can move forward in certain life events? Let me give you some examples:

Things that should require an IQ Test before you are allowed to do them:

1. Have and Raise Children.
2. Posting on Social Media Platforms.
3. Operating any type of vehicle that goes over 15 mph.
4. Being able to mass email the entire company.
5. Ordering a drink at Starbucks
6. Investing in Crypto, stocks, real estate, basically any investment idea you can’t explain to me in one minute.
7. Getting through TSA and boarding a plane.
8. Joining an organized religion.
9. Running for political office.
10. Running with scissors.

On the flip side, there are a lot of things we shouldn’t be testings someone’s IQ:

1. Most jobs.
2. Filling out taxes in America. Do you mean that thing the government already knows the exact amount you owe, but they make you go through hell and back to figure out the same number?
3. Attending college.
4. Having civility towards others.
5. Setting up email on your new cell phone.
6. Streaming tv shows and movies on any device.
7. Logging onto to wifi.
8. Understanding extended warranties.
9. Getting your medical care paid for.
10. Navigating the college financial aid system.

Here’s what we are fairly confident about when it comes to selecting talent for organizations, in terms of what matters and what doesn’t. The most important factor in determining if someone will succeed or not follows this pattern:

#1. Job Sample. Simply put this is some sort of job preview assessment in which the person does a real portion of the job. Turns out, that if a person can do the job, that is the number one indicator that they can do the job!

#2. Cognitive Ability. Now you might think, “Oh, this is IQ!” And in a way you’re right. The second most correlated factor to job success is a person’s ability to be able to quickly understand and learn the job. So, it’s not all about smarts, but that certainly plays into it.

#3. Desire to do the job. Yeah, people who want to do the job you have, well, that tends to be a high predictor of success in doing the job! That makes sense. You can have someone who can do the job and learns quickly, but they hate the job. Those folks won’t be successful.

Therein lies a big problem we have in hiring and selecting people for jobs. Most of us don’t have a job sample type of assessment. Instead, we have flawed people (all of us) interviewing flawed people (all candidates) and making an assessment through our conscious and unconscious bias on who will be the best hire. And don’t even get started on the witchcraft science that is personality assessments!

So, how can we hire better people?

Knowing that job samples are hard to set up, hard to administer, and expensive, the most predictive thing you can do is institute the fastest assessment you can find around someone’s agility to learn. Part of this assessment will be measuring their cognitive ability. Within that will be some IQ, but more importantly how well and how fast they can learn. If you hire great learners, you will be farther ahead than most organizations.

Okay, what did I miss on who we should be IQ testing in the world? Hit me in the comments!