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Comment by aswanson | Hacker News Reader

You don't even need an explicit test. Just ask for their SAT and divide by 10. If post-1995, divide by 10 then multiply by 2/3. I still wouldn't hire purely on IQ though. An intelligent adult with no coding skill isn't that way for no reason. You cannot make someone into something they haven't much interest in being.

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Your math for comparing SAT scores is off (what is the point of dividing everyone's score by ten?) There have been two main changes in scoring: in 1995 they recentered the scores which in effect increased many peoples' score on the order of 50 points or so (one can convert old scores here: http://2-bit.com/misc/satcalc.html). In 2005, they added a writing section so now your score is out of 2400 instead of 1600. Also, I think you'd want to compare peoples scores based on the current scale which would mean adjusting scores prior to 1995 so that they are recentered and either multiplying by 3/2 for scores before 2005 or discarding the writing portion for everyone.

But many people don't even take the SAT. At least when I was in high school (and likely still today), midwest universities tended to prefer the ACT. Thus, you're essentially looking for people who hit some percentile on national tests, similar to what one would do when applying for MENSA.

Also, as you and others have stated, this isn't really the best way to evaluate people for programming jobs.

The divide by 10 works as a gross estimated iq score (within 5 points) on the old sat.

It was about 20 points low for me.

Yeah it'd be pretty low for me too.

then again, there are several IQ tests, so that could contribute to the problem of having a generic conversion equation.

I can see the appeal in using SAT tests as they are pretty standardized but I don't think SAT scores would be a good indicator of whether or not you should hire someone for a couple reasons.

1. SAT scores can be greatly inflated simply by taking an SAT class. 2. The SATs are pretty bias towards native English speakers (as 2/3 of is reading and writing and the 1/3 that is "math" has a lot of reading comprehension required) 3. SAT scores aren't really a good indicator of the prospect employee's work habits or ability to play nice with others, both of which are pretty important points to consider when hiring someone.

Well. I suppose points 1 and 3 also apply to IQ tests.

What about people (like myself) who never took the SAT?

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