# do they do IQ testing in hiring in India? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 9, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795 "2011-04-09T20:08:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/21 "2011-04-10T20:18:25Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > From what little I know, approximately the following happened in India: In the late 1980’s they got rid of a lot of restrictions on how businesses were run. It became much easier to start a business and make a profit on them. Many businesses were started that did engineering and programming for non-Indian firms. There were considerably more qualified graduates than jobs at that point, so it was easy to start the businesses, hire good employees, and run the businesses cheaply. This made it worthwhile for non-Indian firms to outsource parts of their engineering/programming-type jobs to these firms. > > By the early 1990’s there were also many businesses which offered to be the service departments for non-Indian English-speaking companies. This was also cheaper for these non-Indian firms than running their own service departments, and there were enough good English speakers for these service departments to be able to do their job well. At this point the Indian government decided that it would be a good idea to open up more universities (or to increase the size of the existing ones) so that the new businesses would have more employees. > > The new businesses continued to grow and look for new employees. There were more university graduates, but the new universities weren’t well run. There weren’t enough good graduates for the jobs opening up. This isn’t a matter of stupid students but of badly run universities. The businesses often find that they can train the students to be good enough to do their jobs, but that takes a while and costs money. Re your hypothesis I’ve bought enough PCs and notebooks over the years that I’ve had occasion to use consumer level Indian staffed call center / service providers from the time they were initiated to the present day. If you are fortunate you may randomly run across a decent tech who is also a fully intelligible English speaker, but re your better to worse over time conjecture I will tell you that they have almost all been extremely questionable quality from day one. There was no “golden age” of Indian based tech help/service. It’s been sub-standard from the beginning and remains (in general) a sub-standard service to his day. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/22 "2011-04-10T23:34:57Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I think the reason people keep bringing up the article is that it isn’t irreleveant. It provides an answer to the question you pose: > > > [@](#): > > > > “while many Westerners (including certain programmers here on SD who certainly are not known for being “rightist” or “racist”) consider Indian employees dumb, are there similar beliefs endemic amongst Indian management?” > > And the answer the article provides is that the problem Indian companys perceive with Indian Employees is that the educational system doesn’t produce enough of them at an adequate level of training to meet the demand for employees. There isn’t really any reason to think IQ tests would do anything to solve this problem. After all, you don’t really need to be a genius to work in a call center, you just need to speak English. just because article provides an answer does not mean it’s a true answer. Do you always believe everything you read in WSJ? It’s true that you don’t need to be genius to work in call center. You also cannot be very dumb - more specific IQ guidelines would be something to seek and find through empirical study, which nobody is doing nowadays. Regardless of the call center issue, there are many white collar occupations in India that require high intellectual ability which may or may not be present in the typical job applicant. You need to have some smarts to be a programmer, accountant, technical writer and so on. No amount of MS degrees will paper over the gap of sheer lack of intelligence. So IQ testing may be particularly appropriate when hiring for those other, more cognitively demanding fields rather than call centers. Then again, IQ testing would not help if it turns out that those dumb white collar employees are still the cream of the intellectual crop amongst the groups/castes they originate from, i.e. if basically if there are no non-lemon job seekers out there, other than a small minority of Brahmins that end up in IIT and similar. The observation that many Indians may be too dumb for their jobs should not be taken to imply that non-Indians, let’s say white people, are geniuses. In the West people below a certain IQ cutoff simply don’t become programmers or accountants - they seek other vocations where their weaknesses are less obvious and their strengths more important. The same applies to China, regardless of the quality of their vocational and college education. A smart Chinese who graduated from a crappy college is still smart, which may be a reason why nobody complains about dumb Chinese white collar employees. I do realize that this thread has already veered well into the GD territory. Also, in a sense, we have found our answer - the answer is **42** , scratch that, **no**. As far as people who post here are aware, IQ testing is not in fact used there. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/23 "2011-04-11T03:53:43Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > jIt’s true that you don’t need to be genius to work in call center. You also cannot be very dumb - more specific IQ guidelines would be something to seek and find through empirical study, which nobody is doing nowadays. You clearly have something to say about IQ. I have experience with hiring in India and China, and I have never heard of an IQ test being used in a hiring context. There are no empirical studies on it because it is, frankly, a stupid idea. IQ does not tell you about a number of things that are just as or even more important to a person’s suitability for a job: job-specific skills, reliability, people-skills, professionalism, leadership potential, etc. There aren’t really a lot of gaps in our current method of screening employees (resume showing past work and education, interview, references) that IQ would fill. It’d just be worthless information that cost money to find. We have no problem using tests, such as the SATs, when they are useful, and information about how these score break down along racial lines is widely available. There is no big conspiracy here. What you are failing to understand is that most of the world just doesn’t place the same emphasis on IQ as you do. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/24 "2011-04-11T05:26:59Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > … > There are no empirical studies on it because it is, frankly, a stupid idea. IQ does not tell you about a number of things that are just as or even more important to a person’s suitability for a job: job-specific skills, reliability, people-skills, professionalism, leadership potential, etc. There aren’t really a lot of gaps in our current method of screening employees (resume showing past work and education, interview, references) that IQ would fill. It’d just be worthless information that cost money to find. > > We have no problem using tests, such as the SATs, when they are useful, and information about how these score break down along racial lines is widely available. > … or maybe there are few studies of it because the few people (I think it is all four of them, or something like that) who try doing them get physically attacked on college campuses and have trouble getting grant money. SATs are very nice, but that’s in America. Do they have SAT type tests in India that could be used for hiring? I don’t mean the difficult and content-oriented IIT entrance exam, but specifically a test that would be taken by the majority of academically inclined students and have a normal distribution of scores. In China I do think they have something like that. Or at least something like SAT 2. But I don’t know about the normal distribution part. E.g. in both England and Russia high school students take content-based tests that are graded with discrete grades, sort of like American AP exams. So the normal distribution of scores typical of American SAT / ACT or military AFQT is clearly not the norm everywhere. Indeed, those two countries’ colleges traditionally gave entrance exams to applicants during admissions process and had little interest in systematically testing large numbers of high school students. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/25 "2011-04-11T05:33:45Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > or maybe there are few studies of it because the few people (I think it is all four of them, or something like that) who try doing them get physically attacked on college campuses and have trouble getting grant money. What on earth are you talking about? ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/26 "2011-04-11T07:02:41Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > What on earth are you talking about? it appears that I was inaccurate in alleging that all the IQ researches were attacked. It seems that at least two of them were, both physically and by receiving death threats, as discussed here [The Scorpion](http://thescorp.multics.org/23race.html) . There are also scattered mentions of others being heckled by protesters, but I don’t feel like doing research. Do I need to go into details about how people do or do not get grants for controversial research? Perhaps it is unfortunate that some of these people have spent so much effort and stirred up so much controversy with the sterile question of IQ of American blacks whereas there are other more socially useful applications that have remained unexplored. I think it is usually a good idea to develop scientific disciplines in an engineering manner, establishing workable/useful results first and only then generalizing (and controversializing, if it so works out) from there. Otherwise if all you have is a nice “theory of everything” but no institutionalized, working practice, your whole discipline can be shut down with the stroke of a pen by a grant-making body. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/27 "2011-04-11T07:30:00Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > it appears that I was inaccurate in alleging that all the IQ researches were attacked. It seems that at least two of them were, both physically and by receiving death threats, as discussed here [The Scorpion](http://thescorp.multics.org/23race.html) . There are also scattered mentions of others being heckled by protesters, but I don’t feel like doing research. > > Do I need to go into details about how people do or do not get grants for controversial research? > > Perhaps it is unfortunate that some of these people have spent so much effort and stirred up so much controversy with the sterile question of IQ of American blacks whereas there are other more socially useful applications that have remained unexplored. I think it is usually a good idea to develop scientific disciplines in an engineering manner, establishing workable/useful results first and only then generalizing (and controversializing, if it so works out) from there. Otherwise if all you have is a nice “theory of everything” but no institutionalized, working practice, your whole discipline can be shut down with the stroke of a pen by a grant-making body. If you have an opinion or position about iQ testing you really need to air it out in GD. Your GQ question(s) about Indian IQ testing have been answered repeatedly, but you seem to more or less ignore these responses and want to keep meandering all over the lot with any new tangents that occur to you. Your question has been answered, you’re kind of just hand waving at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/28 "2011-04-11T14:04:27Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > it appears that I was inaccurate in alleging that all the IQ researches were attacked. It seems that at least two of them were, both physically and by receiving death threats, as discussed here [The Scorpion](http://thescorp.multics.org/23race.html) . There are also scattered mentions of others being heckled by protesters, but I don’t feel like doing research. Wait, so you’re basing an argument that IQ researchers are heckled because eugenicists were? As **astro** mentioned, what does that have to do with IQ testing by Indian technology employers? How would it help them to find qualified candidates? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/29 "2011-04-11T16:27:18Z")
**code\_grey** , some questions for you: 1. Why do you think they are having trouble determining who is qualified? 2. Why do you think IQ is the primary factor in who is qualified? 3. Why do you think that IQ testing is the most economically efficient method of determining who is qualified even if IQ is a critical factor? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/30 "2011-04-11T16:33:13Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > Do I need to go into details about how people do or do not get grants for controversial research? If you want to claim that modern day IQ researchers can’t get grants because of their topic, then yes, you do. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/31 "2011-04-11T16:51:58Z")
> [@Yarster](#): > > I’m sure India has a number of different types of educational institutions some of which are accredited, and some of which are diploma mills. Even in the U.S. I have trouble differentiating these, since even diploma mills do a good job of making themselves seem real. I imagine this may be even more complex in India where there may be different governing bodies for universities in different provinces, etc. Less complex, not more. The US system of non-governmental regional accreditation bodies is virtually unique. Nearly every other industrialized country has a government-run accreditation process. Indian universities are accredited by field-specific boards operated by the (national) University Grants Commission. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/32 "2011-04-11T19:12:02Z")
**Colibri** , could you please put this thread out of its misery? It is not likely to produce any new useful info (if it ever produced such in the first place) and by now we are in a situation where some people are openly debating me while others are blaming my responses to the former for being a GD in GQ thread. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/33 "2011-04-11T20:19:03Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > **Colibri** , could you please put this thread out of its misery? It is not likely to produce any new useful info (if it ever produced such in the first place) and by now we are in a situation where some people are openly debating me while others are blaming my responses to the former for being a GD in GQ thread. My 3 questions seem like a reasonable attempt at understanding your assumptions before further discussion, why not answer them? ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/34 "2011-04-11T20:28:10Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > My 3 questions seem like a reasonable attempt at understanding your assumptions before further discussion, why not answer them? for one thing, not until **ultrafilter** and **astro** get lost from this thread. For another, like I already noted, I do not find the “further discussion” of much further personal benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/35 "2011-04-11T20:51:56Z")
Mhm. So you’re not taking a liking to having your assumptions questioned. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/36 "2011-04-11T20:56:05Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > for one thing, not until **ultrafilter** and **astro** get lost from this thread. > > For another, like I already noted, I do not find the “further discussion” of much further personal benefit. It sets a bad precedent to post a question, engage people and then tire of it because you don’t like other poster’s responses. If your assumptions are defendable, then make a case for them. If they aren’t then you might learn something. It’s just an exchange of ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/37 "2011-04-11T21:47:21Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > **Colibri** , could you please put this thread out of its misery? It is not likely to produce any new useful info (if it ever produced such in the first place) and by now we are in a situation where some people are openly debating me while others are blaming my responses to the former for being a GD in GQ thread. > [@code\_grey](#): > > for one thing, not until **ultrafilter** and **astro** get lost from this thread. > > For another, like I already noted, I do not find the “further discussion” of much further personal benefit. [Moderator Note] **code\_grey** , I’m not about to close this thread merely because you don’t like the answers you have been getting. Neither are you entitled to suggest that other posters should “get lost” from the thread. Further, once you’ve initiated the discussion, it’s no longer really relevant whether you find it of “personal benefit.” However, this thread is probably out of GQ territory now and into GD, so I’m going to move it there. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/38 "2011-04-11T22:23:33Z")
that’s fine. As often happens in my threads, the bulk of the discussion is happening between me and other people (in this case, unfortunately, between me and several individuals who are bating me using intellectually dishonest rhetorical methods that are IMHO incompatible with real discussion). So, presumably, with me no longer contributing for lack of benefit :-), the “discussion” will die down by itself. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795/39 "2011-04-11T22:55:14Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > You clearly have something to say about IQ. > > I have experience with hiring in India and China, and I have never heard of an IQ test being used in a hiring context. > > There are no empirical studies on it because it is, frankly, a stupid idea. IQ does not tell you about a number of things that are just as or even more important to a person’s suitability for a job: job-specific skills, reliability, people-skills, professionalism, leadership potential, etc. There aren’t really a lot of gaps in our current method of screening employees (resume showing past work and education, interview, references) that IQ would fill. It’d just be worthless information that cost money to find. It’s not a stupid idea if you’re unsure about the validity of peoples credentials. For instance, the Army uses psychometric tests because they are pretty effective. There is a lot of research on the usefulness of psychometric tests for predicting [job performance](http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Xm7qrWJrRTEC&pg=PA357&lpg=PA357&dq=Hunter+%26+schmidt+psychometric+testing&source=bl&ots=kMahvj7-e9&sig=0zFjDWT3orpGbJ5U6aOLI1ZMGrw&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Hunter%20%26%20schmidt%20psychometric%20testing&f=false). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-do-iq-testing-in-hiring-in-india/577795.md?page=1)