Is it legal to give prospective employees an IQ test?

Question

Is it legal to give prospective employees an IQ test?

Suppose that the job requires one to be intelligent and/or a quick learner.

(I'm primarily interested in the US, but I'm curious about other countries also.)

Answer 1

united-states

It is legal to give prospective employees an IQ test, if IQ is a bona fide occupational qualification for the job, and is not merely a ruse for illegal discrimination in a job for which it is not related to a bona fide occupational qualification.

The leading case is Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). It held that even if there is no discriminatory intent, an employer may not use a job requirement that functionally excludes members of a certain race if it has no relation to measuring performance of job duties. It held that testing or measuring procedures cannot be determinative in employment decisions unless they have some connection to the job.

This ruling, interpreting federal employment discrimination statutes, was superseded by statute, however, by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2(h). This amended statute expressly protects the use of “ability tests” not intended to discriminate unlawfully. This was recognized in U.S. v. State of N.C., 914 F. Supp. 1257, 1265–66 (E.D.N.C. 1996), which also observed that "the Supreme Court has overruled Griggs sub silentio". The controlling employment law precedents and statutory language now require employment discrimination to be intentional to give rise to legal liability.

The statute overruling Grigg on this point states in the pertinent part:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice . . . for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

A court case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in the year 2000 likewise upheld an employer's decision to not hire anyone with an IQ over a certain threshold as a police office (as strange as that may seem).

State law generally tracks the federal law in this regard.

Answer 2

france

"No" as asked, but mostly yes

Article L1221-6 du code du travail:

Les informations demandées, sous quelque forme que ce soit, au candidat à un emploi ne peuvent avoir comme finalité que d'apprécier sa capacité à occuper l'emploi proposé ou ses aptitudes professionnelles.

Ces informations doivent présenter un lien direct et nécessaire avec l'emploi proposé ou avec l'évaluation des aptitudes professionnelles.

Information asked in any way to a prospective employee must only have the aim to evaluate their ability to fill the job or their professional abilities.

That information must have a direct and necessary link with the job opening or the evaluation of the candidate’s professional abilities.

You should give your prospective employee a test that is as tailored as possible to the actual requirements of the job. (This is a good idea from a business perspective in addition to the legal angle, by the way.)

That does not mean that you should design from scratch a test tailored to each open position (which would almost surely involve tremendous expense for little benefit); it does not mean that every business decision you make should be sound, either. However, if you purposefully choose a general IQ test over anything that would fit the position better, you are running afoul of the statute. For instance, "intelligent and/or a quick learner" is better measured by a logic test rather than a general IQ test.

The Work Ministry website lists a few types of test, depending on what you want to test in a candidate. Notice that general IQ tests are not on the list.

Hence, my answer to the stated question is "probably not", but it only applies to IQ tests specifically - a whole range of psychotechnical tests are OK.

Other tests are definitely not OK, though. The circulaire DRT 93-10 du 15 mars 1993 says:

(...) si la loi n'institue pas un principe de validité scientifique des méthodes employées, principe qui serait inadapté dans un certain nombre de cas, elle exige un degré raisonnable de fiabilité. Ainsi, le recours à des techniques présentant une marge d'erreur importante ne serait pas conforme à l'obligation de pertinence imposée par la loi.

En cas de litige, il appartiendra au juge d'apprécier la pertinence de la méthode utilisée. (...)

(...) though the statute does not require recruitments methods to be scientifically valid, which would not be easy to interpret in some cases, it still requires a reasonable degree of fiability. Thus, using techniques that involve a large margin of error would not conform to the statute’s relevance requirement.

In case of litigation, the court will appreciate the relevance of the method used. (...)

A circulaire is technically only the government (agency)’s interpretation of statute, and does not have legal force in itself. However, its existence means that an employer using (say) astrology could not argue that scientific validity is irrelevant.