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What is more vital for career success? IQ or Social Skills?

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What is more important in determining career success?
ASD - IQ over social skills 10%  10%  [ 5 ]
ASD - Social skills over IQ 51%  51%  [ 25 ]
ASD - Social skills and IQ are equally important. 18%  18%  [ 9 ]
ASD - Other 6%  6%  [ 3 ]
NT - IQ over social skills 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
NT - Social skills over IQ 10%  10%  [ 5 ]
NT - Social skills and IQ are equally important. 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
NT - Other 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 49

animalcrackers
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11 Apr 2013, 6:03 pm

Other, ASD: Choosing a career, and a workplace that fits your particular skills in all applicable areas.

Generally, I don't think IQ is a very good predictor of real-life success -- I don't even think it's a very good measure of someone's intelligence (which, in this context, I'm guessing means something like "ability/potential to succeed in any given career").

Career success is not all about having a high enough IQ, nor a certain type of technical/social skills/aptitude, but about finding the right job and the right workplace to match your skills, interests and interpersonal style.

"Social skills" can mean many different things in a discussion about employment, because social expectations change depending on the context.

The workplace environment -- specifically who you work for/with -- determines a lot about what kinds of skills (social and technical) and what sort of interpersonal style(s) are valued above others....Two different places could hire people to do what is basically the same job, but have very different expectations of their employees in terms of both social skills and technical skills.


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xMistrox
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11 Apr 2013, 6:06 pm

IQ is an attempt at measuring intelligence, and intelligence itself roughly translates to perception in most definitions. The IQ tests themselves focus on pure perception, which is finding and using a pattern in something, be it language, math, or visual skills. Defining intelligence by these means (as in the definition above) would be fairly accurate for the majority of people (different language, blind, etc. wouldn't apply to parts of this statement), in that you take in information from all sources and make sense of it properly. Socializing type IQ's aren't really worked into most IQ measurements, so for the purposes of this thread, I'd consider these being the "Social Skills" option, and put math/science/language/systemizing skills into the "IQ" option.

I think the problem comes in when we try to apply memory/knowledge to intelligence, or apply intelligence as a method of defining worth of a person. Not everyone will have a high IQ in all areas, but putting that IQ to use is the important part of work success.


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ghoti
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11 Apr 2013, 6:07 pm

Social skills.

I am totally qualified for my career with intelligence and technical skills. But can't get hired or even looked at with the lack of social/people skills.\ they are all coveting now. Resume shows i can perform the technical tasks, but does not show tasks/positions requiring social skills and associated ladder climbing skills, such as project management.



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11 Apr 2013, 7:07 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
It depends on the job.

However, I object to the use of "IQ", and would prefer "intelligence".


I was originally planning on using the term "intelligence" over IQ. But the title of the thread can only take so many characters and I wanted to be as clear as possible on what the subject of the thread was. Since IQ, as you probably already figured out, takes less characters than "intelligence", I used the term IQ instead.



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11 Apr 2013, 8:50 pm

I think if Einstein had not had a required minimum of social skills to go with it, even HIS contribution wouldn't have been acknowledged.

In general, I think the more you have of one the less you require of the other.


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12 Apr 2013, 7:23 am

Jacoby wrote:
Having a high IQ really means jack squat in most jobs unless you're a scientist or something.

Social skills is more important than IQ in science, too, believe me! :lol:


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12 Apr 2013, 8:33 pm

Tyri0n wrote:
"Social skills" is a little inaccurate too. I think inherent likeability is as important, if not more so.

I've beat out as*holes with much better "social skills" for promotions and such just because I'm more inherently likeable.


That's interesting. I'd have thought that those 'as*holes' would be able to use their social skills to fake being a 'likeable' person. But otherwise I think you have a point, I may not have the best social skills (though adequate in many cases) but I can see my likeability being a useful asset for me in my future career from comments from other people (both during past work experiences and outside).


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12 Apr 2013, 9:03 pm

xMistrox wrote:
Depends on what one means by success. Upward mobility surely requires keen social skills, but exceeding at any job requires the ability to do the work efficiently and effectively, in which I believe IQ is the most important. To be among the richest, and not accounting for other factors, I would say it is about 25% of the "correct" social skills, and 75% IQ, perception, and knowledge relating to an advanced field. For a standard competitive job that isn't in a lone or specialized work environment, I'd say it is more 75% social and 25% IQ.


^ Actually, this.

But even then, that's assuming IQ translates to a direct rating of intelligence. A lot of the specialized knowledge actually isn't rocket science and can be acquired with enough discipline, and don't actually require extreme smarts. But a lack of social skills can screw you right over.