That said, I had monumentally high IQ scores as a little kid, and they are surely vastly lower in adulthood. So I'm not very eager to be retested either. ;)
The urban legend of Kasparov's IQ being in the 190 range is still purported, but once he was actually examined (an initiative of "Der Spiegel" magazine) it turned out his IQ was 135 or so.
This is highly intelligent, of course, but that's like 1 in 100 or 1 in 150, so people with higher IQ are still dime a dozen.
Personally I'm of an opinion that IQ doesn't mean much - it's a "dexterous fingers" thing. You surely need dexterous fingers to become an accomplished neurosurgeon or a violinist, but this trait is pointless by itself, and 1 in a 1000 level of dexterity is good enough, so you don't gain anything by going beyond that.
Opinions certainly vary there! My first "real" programming job interview began with an IQ test, and passing it was basically what got me an offer. The company owner scored the test in front of me, and said "Not bad.. five points above the minimum I'd consider hiring for a developer position."
But the idea that either intelligence or innovativeness etc. are quantifiable by a simple test, and that the measure is linear here, seems just as oversimplified to me, and ultimately also an ideological construct
I ask because I tend to agree with the OP. IQ tests assign points based on specific types of questions, which I'd argue aren't valuable in all circumstances. I think the point Magnus was making is that he doesn't think IQ is directly relevant to Chess, despite any correlation between those with high IQs and those who have been successful at the game.
I have worked with plenty of people with high IQs in academics and I can't imagine trying to work with them in an office. If anything, the job to which you are referring would have me worried due to such such strict adherence to an objective score that can fluctuate over time. Isn't five points right around the normal confidence interval for IQ tests?