Should I mention my genius IQ on a resume?

Why are people replying to a post from 2009?

The original post is mostly like a joke. However, if it is a legit post, someone with a high IQ would have almost certainly done well on the SAT and would be a National Merit Scholar. Listing “National Merit Scholar” on a resume is entirely appropriate. Also, I read years ago that some Wall Street-type employers required candidates to list their SAT scores on job applications because with the notorious grade inflation it was difficult to find the smartest candidates. So perhaps it would be ok to list an SAT score, although most employers would probably think it is pretentious for someone to list an SAT score on a resume.

Mensa guy wrote:

I'm in my late-30s and needing employment. Was self-employed but this economy and a recent breach of contract has hit the home finances very hard. I was offered a top-level job while still in college and took it, so I never finished my degree. To compensate I was wondering if mentioning my high IQ OR having it on the resume might be a boost to me.

Any employers out there to give an idea on this. Too much pretense? Arrogance? Your thoughts.

I will answer your question honestly.

No. There is no point including your IQ on your resume. Employers don't seem to care about how smart a candidate is and how quickly they can pick up new information.

All they want to know is can you do the job without them having to bother training you (whilst they pay as little as they can get away with).

Didn't realise the op was from 12 years ago...

td;dr; most employers are scum.

You are making the false assumption that IQ is a reliable indicator of general cognitive ability.

Also, there are different kinds of cognitive ability. Someone might be an excellent analytical thinker, but with poor spatial reasoning.

Late 30s is a time to list accomplishments, not genetic characteristics. Think of basketball. Being 6 foot 8 at age 15 gets you on the high school team even if you’ve never played. Later on, whether college or pro ball, they check what you’ve done on teams in recent years. Not many people are 6 foot 8, but many of them are awful at basketball. The teams want the guys who can play the best, whether 6 foot 8 or shorter, but good contributors on the court. Use your intelligence to craft a resume that leads the reader to infer that you must be intelligent, rather than pushing the point with a three digit number. People making decisions tend to give more credence to their inferences than what they are specifically presented as a conclusion to reach.

Also, if you’ve ever advertised a job opening as an employer, you know that you get a deluge of good looking resumes via email. with only a few spots open. They aren’t hiring a deluge, so that mostly leads to applicant disappointment. The time to stand out is on the job, not in the resume. I’ve known several late 30s people who set themselves up well for their 40s and 50s by getting an easily attainable job in a good company with move up steps in the hierarchy and they soon had a job they would never have been hired directly for. Get in a big company plenty of work. Learn the ropes and move up year by year a few times, then every couple of years after that. In distance running terms, start by running shorter and easier, then build the base systematically to a high level, for better eventual performance. Good luck.

Oh, given that this is an old thread, my comments are better directed to those currently facing resume crafting and career planning, than the OP. Build a base at a company that you enter through an obtainable job,

I am also late 30's. Well for starters if you are really a genius you would know that no employer cares. For example I graduated from a typical university and went to grad school at a typical university. I work with a number of ivy leaguers and an engineer who went to MIT. Guess who they constantly ask to help them? Me why? Because genius doesn't mean you can do a better job sometimes geniuses screw up because they think they know everything. Putting it on a resume if you are serious and not a troll will probably just eliminate you from the selection pool of applicants.

It's a funny game. IQ is in fact one of the best single predictors of job performance, slightly better than even prior experience or interview performance in a number of studies. (I used to hire people, so looked into the research.) However, putting your IQ on your resume is a terrible idea - it makes you look socially incompetent and weird. Employers want to find people who have high IQs, but not the ones who are out-of-step enough with the game to say so on a resume.

(In my personal view, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with putting your IQ on a resume. It's a useful signal, in a context aimed at self-promotion, so why not? But the thing is, a lot of other employers will think it makes you look weird. And you should have known that. Since you didn't, you probably actually *are* weird/out of touch. And in fact, that may have been the reasoning of those other employers as well! So this may be a somewhat arbitrary social convention. But even someone who isn't personally bothered by a breach of convention may still take it as a signal that you have other undesirable characteristics.)

So you need to find other ways to signal that you have high IQ without coming out and saying it, or making yourself look like a dweeb in the process. The classic one is success at previous jobs. Being able to talk competently and insightfully on a range of topics. For a first job, academic awards. Maybe you could get away with an LSAT/GMAT/MCAT score depending on the field and if you're early in your career, I'm not sure. Or if it comes up in the interview, maybe you could mention how much you enjoy chess and solving math problems for fun? (mostly joking on that one)

Interestingly, some tech jobs solve this problem by basically giving candidates an IQ test during the interview - e.g. having candidates solve brain teasers and whiteboard algorithm problems. Candidates often complain that the content of these exercises isn't directly related to the jobs they're being hired for. That's true. So are these billion dollar companies just idiots? No, it's an intelligence test. It's a way to find smart employees who aren't weird/clueless enough to put an IQ on their resume.

I hire people. I would not hire you if you put it on the resume. My first thought is "this guy won't be able to communicate well with others and lead people." Like it or not, high IQ folks typically lack social awareness. Your post and even considering it proves my point.

Haha. Go for it :) I really wanna know what the recruiters say about it.

also fart at interview

People People, this is a zombie thread

Mensa guy wrote:

I'm in my late-30s and needing employment. Was self-employed but this economy and a recent breach of contract has hit the home finances very hard. I was offered a top-level job while still in college and took it, so I never finished my degree. To compensate I was wondering if mentioning my high IQ OR having it on the resume might be a boost to me.

Any employers out there to give an idea on this. Too much pretense? Arrogance? Your thoughts.

I would never hire anyone who mentioned their IQ. For one, it's easy to lie about. Secondly, skills and experience, not natural genetic ability are far more important. Don't be stupid, leave that off.

I lived in Palo Alto for a year. Couldn't believe how many stupid people lived and work there.

Include it if you have a low GPA. That way they'll know that you're a smart slacker and not a dumb slacker.

I've hired a lot of people for professional thinking jobs. If someone put their IQ on a resume it would go straight to reject for lack of professional modicum.

A few places do want hard numbers.

You need to not sound so tactless as listing your IQ. Find a proxy, like a name of school not everyone can earn a degree from.

No. For someone to have a genius level IQ and to not have finished college raises red flags about you being an under-achiever and it no way compensates for any gaps or inconsistencies in your background. What companies care about is your ability to get results. Besides, success in business or life in general is more about tenacity and the ability to work with people than raw intellectual horsepower. I don't remember what is considered "genius" but as a HS senior a counselor felt compelled to have me take an IQ test and I scored 143. I've probably lost 20 points since then. Being very intelligent is an advantage in certain jobs like quantitative analysis on Wall Street but it can also be a major disadvantage if people think you are arrogant or if you are able to synthesize information so quickly that people think you are not even listening to them