Chinese graduates need IQ of 140 to get a job

Or 120 if you're American

A major outsourcing outfit which headhunts graduates for IT careers in China is demanding that applicants demonstrate an IQ of at least 140 before they even get a sniff of a job.

If you are lucky enough to have an IQ of 140, you're generally considered to be a genius and can count yourself among just 0.3 per cent of the population.

Bleum, a company which has started to hire Chinese graduates to work in Shanghai's burgeoning tech industry, says that it is applying the criteria in order comply with Chinese hiring practices. But the company, which also recruits graduates from the USA, gives our colonial cousins a bit of a break when it comes to brain power, only requiring them to score 120 points on the same test.

Bleum insists that the inconsistency is due to smaller pool of graduates applying from the US, rather than the restricted gene pool.

The company employees more than 1,000 bodies, hires less than one per cent of the people who apply for work, and reckons its easier to get into Harvard than it is to get on its payroll.

IQ test are notoriously inaccurate, especially for high scorers, and measure 'abstract reasoning' rather than true intelligence.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that people with extraordinary IQs can be more susceptible to mental illness, proving the adage that there's a fine line between genius and madness.

I'm off to shout at the people at the bus stop about the radio signals in my head and the Dorset cheesemaker conspiracy. Where's my special UFO-repelling hat?