Hiring Smart

What sort of company uses an IQ test to see if they'll hire you or not?

When you (read: I) decide whether to hire a programmer or not, you might ask some programming questions, talk about it a bit, and in the end definitely bump them up in your mind if they "got everything right". But it should really be about using the puzzle as a starting point for a conversation, where the interviewer is thinking to themselves "Could I work with them and not keep thinking they're slowing me down?" That's the eventual question, anyways, that will really determine whether they're a good hire or not.

But apparently finance sorts of jobs will just give you some standardized tests. Are you going to end up hiring a bunch of nerds with no real world communications skills instead of intelligent well-rounded people?

I don't know. But if you are, well, it should be good for the sort of people who are friends of mine trying to get jobs in the finance biz. ;-)

Play the game and cram for your IQ test. Half of your eventual finance job will probably be about how to work hard to find the flaw in a stupid system, so it'll be good practice.