To wonder how smart do you actually have to be for some professions?

[Jigaliga]

Inspired by a comment on another thread...

Do you really have to be genuinely intelligent to be a doctor, lawyer, etc? Or is it just putting in the grind and a good education?

I guess to be an academic you would have to be intelligent. To be a barrister too, but maybe not to be a solicitor? What about accountants?

How can you know that, though? Have you read the written advices or listened to oral submissions made by your legal friends? Have you followed their cases through to judgement to see what the judge made of their critical thinking skills, or seen how their contract drafting has resulted in success or failure for the companies they work with?

Personally I wouldn't have a clue how good my legal friends outside of my specific field are at critical thinking except that they still have jobs, and critical thinking essentially IS the job.

I'm in one of those professions and there are people who sneak through despite being not being very bright. There are many who are above average intelligence but not top 5% intelligent and I can think of one in particular who didn't get good academic grades and sneaked through an entry level role and is working her way up but isn't very intelligent. I'm sure she's not the only one. Someone I went to school with is a gp now and wasn't one of the most intelligent kids in class so yes it is possible.

Maybe the conveyancing solicitors are simply less organised then, because the number of errors in their work that I’ve experienced has been alarming.

I think @Frozo that @Theunamedcat was probably referring to SEND case officers, who are certainly not what one would regard as highly paid, but maybe are lacking in emotional intelligence. That could be said of a number of highly paid professionals, particularly those with logical brains. I’m sure someone will say that it’s a generalisation, which could be true, but I think emotional intelligence requires a focus on the person as well as the task,

Thanks for the thread OP.

I have a law degree but work in a fashion related industry. Think 'thicko' beauticians as per a previous poster.
I have just agreed a £500m deal making me a multi millionaire.
So I'm not a lawyer, doctor or accountant although my wider family are/ were.
How did I do it?
Not connections in my earlier career. I worked 5am until 10pm for 35 years. I commuted long distances and I frequently failed to see my first child. I took massive risks with investments. Some failed.
I grew up on a council estate but I had a genteel impoverished mother. I also met and married a decent hard working man who had the emotional intelligence to let me shine. He was happy to pick up the slack. I'm one of the few women at my level and my age in my industry. Although targeted at women it's all men at the top and they're pretty toxic to mature women.
I have two adult DC, one's at Oxford and the other is in the civil service. They both had some private schooling.
Both have a love of learning. I don't have any connections in their chosen fields but they've watched me succeed and my DS is super proud of me. My DD as a trainee medic thinks my industry is tosh!
Looking around my friends none of them would have worked those hours or dealt with the people I have had too. They might have fancy schooling but they lack grit and the capacity to problem solve.
Would I do it all again? Hell no I'd work in academia. I do have a high IQ and was a member of mensa as a kid.

My eldest DD is incredibly clever - bordering on a kind of almost genius level. A* grades in nearly everything. Extremely hard working, academic, conscientious, very quirky. She's ahead of her peers and will certainly fly, but she has the personality and character to go with her intelligence too. Her teachers always say that she's looking for the answers in a very unique and unusual way, seeing patterns that aren't always obvious. This is what I consider a real mark of intelligence.

She's got what some might say is "the X factor", but had always been a character from the minute she was born. I'm sure that I'm incredibly biased obviously, but I know she's got true potential to be very good at whatever she does. The one thing that she's not so good at is sport, but I don't think she's too bothered.

In many ways, intelligence is certainly a real asset but hard work, perseverance, personality and an ability to think outside the box is equally important.

Sadly today, as the economist Gary Stevenson has said, the main factor which will determine how wealthy (not how ‘successful’) a person is, is how wealthy their parents are. Generational wealth, inheritance. It never used to be this way, only in recent years. A result of the widening wealth inequality gap.

So many stereotypes on this thread it’s almost like a satirical caricature; the usual bitter comments about “privilege”, derogatory comments about intelligence being “book smart” and pretence that people who are academic cannot manage basic life tasks, ridiculous comments about “school ties” despite blind recruitment, claims that “anybody” could get these jobs which clearly isn’t the case when there are minimum requirements even to apply to train and for the roles in good firms there are hundreds of applicants per place, and that is just to get a foot in the door: you then still have to pass the professional exams and work your way up.

Much of it seems predictably defensive and exemplifies the strange anti-intelligence attitude that, sadly, is prevalent in the UK. It should be immediately obvious to anyone who has been to a non-selective school, or indeed ever dealt with a cross-section of the general public, that it is quite clearly not the case that “anybody could do these roles if they try” otherwise there wouldn’t be so many failed applicants, let alone those who don’t meet the requirements to apply in the first place.

I work in the top tier of one of the named professions. I went to a terrible state school that was subsequently closed because it was so awful. I left home as a teenager and lived alone because I had an abusive childhood. My parents couldn’t be bothered to house me let alone coach me on job interview techniques or exams. 😆 I supported myself financially through A levels and university and then did professional qualifications.

The assumption that everyone in these roles is there because of “privilege” or networks in nonsense. Of course that may make the pathway easier for some initially however, later it makes things harder for them in my experience as they are less independent and have a smaller range of experiences to draw upon so that is a double-edged sword. To be genuinely successful at the top of a profession you need intelligence, work ethic, integrity, inter-personal skills, a capacity for decision-making, innovotion and independent thought and the ability to grasp and connect new concepts quickly. The reality is that only a small percentage of people possess all of these qualities so some may find a way in or progress to an extent but few are capable of reaching the top. Intelligence, however, is a prerequisite of doing so.

I work in finance/tax and earn £200k+ pa (just for reference) and have accounting and tax qualifications. I am definitely not above average intelligence, slightly academic (but also quite lazy) but I did work hard to get my qualifications and have worked hard for the last 25+ years - not every single day but generally!
So I don't think you have to be above average intelligence to do those jobs, maybe if you are very below average it would be difficult.

I'm a lawyer and have worked in some top firms and in-house teams. Some of the other lawyers have been adequate but I wouldn't say hugely intelligent. A worse problem (particularly in-house) is where they may be academically able but completely lacking in common sense and a commercial approach.

Eg at a previous role we had a trainee on secondment. She was in her fourth and final seat so had already done 1.5 years, and by this stage you'd expect her to be acting essentially as a qualified lawyer (I certainly was at that stage). Her line manager asked her a very, very simple research question that could have been answered in a couple of sentences after maybe an hour's research. He also told her it was pretty urgent and needed ideally by COB that day.

Kept asking for progress updates. After a WEEK she comes back with a 20 slide PowerPoint going way off piste, including various academic references, jazzy fonts and pictures and tells her line manager she's booked a room to present it to him.

I mean, all the stuff in there was accurate but my god, that to me is someone with no common sense sense whatsoever. How she got a training contract at a top tier firm I have no idea.

Some of the other lawyers I've met, particularly from the older generations when I guess there were fewer people going to uni so less competition, were decent at their jobs (I'm guessing through decades of experience) but when you actually spoke to them they weren't the brightest tbh.

Of course. People love a stereotype. Here’s another one - People see what they want to see and disregard the rest.

Unless you're in politics.

I did law at Cambridge. While I didn't meet anyone who was truly stupid, I did meet a few people who were naturally nothing particularly special, and would have scored very low on measures of creativity, curiosity, problem solving and/or lateral thinking. The people like that generally offset this with a really strong work ethic, and often public school confidence. And while I absolutely agree with pp that barristers are not automatically more intelligent than solicitors, I do believe that being low curiosity and high conformity is actually quite a strength if you take the magic circle route. Dominic Raab types.

In terms of qualifications, I cant speak for law but I can promise you that my 30 year old science degree was harder and more competitive than current science degrees.
The school exams were harder and there were fewer Uni places.
Reading what my now 17 year olds produce in essays is appalling and they are considered to be amongst the better kids.
When I worked in higher education and read reports (and I am talking taught masters course level, not undergrad), the level of scientific rigor and analysis was very low. The standard of written English was dire as was the ability to present information in a concise way and in a logical order. I wrote better and was expected to write better as a school girl.

Conveyancing work is high volume. It’s not necessarily a lack of intelligence but it’s high caseload vs low fees so you approach it differently.

This reminds me of that alarming joke.

What do you a person who came bottom of every class in medical school?

Doctor.

I have always wondered if you take a child from a household where both parents are in highly paid and educated professions vs the child of eg a Costa shop assistant and put them through the same education what would be the outcome.

I think some of the schools with high "progress 8" achieve this but it is also down to the parents pushing the child in the right direction. The child of a bus driver will be less likely to pursue a high flying career vs the child of a Big 4 partner if both kids went to the same school and got the same grades.

Not necessarily! DH worked at KPMG. He hated it - all the Hooray Henrys in those days. They wanted him to stay.

He went to work for a small firm of accountants, where nobody was expected to work anything like the long hours at the Big Four. The partners had a relatively easy life and still earned 6 figures.

It doesn’t mean DH was less intelligent, because he preferred a better work life balance.

DS got a first and did a MA. His university asked him to be an academic - he looked at a friend of his, trailing round the country on short term appointments, maybe earning £10, 000 pa at one university and £10,000 pa at another. He thought “no thanks”, and went into accountancy, where he earns six figures, after a friend of ours, a solicitor told him not to go into law! It doesn’t mean DS is less intelligent, because he wanted security and a better standard of living for his family.

I have met very bright people among accountants, solicitors and barristers (usually the Oxbridge graduates, but not always), but the quickest people we have ever met on the uptake are the professors of neurology at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Am an academic in social science so surrounded by a mixture of people who are all about the maths or the social world. Have to say one of the perks of the perks of the job is that no one around me is dumb. Most aren't geniuses but not thick. My child also goes to a very middle class school - most parents are high level professionals and it's a bit more mixed. There are definitely people there where you wonder how they go their job.

An important part is having the right uptitudes for your role e.g. medics generally are pretty good with people, entrepreneurs are usually quite gregarious and outgoing, in other roles it's people who make things happen. It's often intelligence, hard work plus other skills necessary for the role.

I'm a solicitor, and so know a lot of solicitors and accountants (no doctors though!). I'd say you have to have some degree of intelligence, but not super super all-round smart. What we do need to have, is the ability to take in lots of information and analyse it pretty quickly (often on the fly, during meetings) to determine advice given and make recommendations. An ability to identify risks in information you're given, and see ways to mitigate it within a reasonable scope that works for the client's business and overall objectives.

FWIW, I went to a bog-basic state comp in 2000's and did OK in GCSEs but not amazing. I was first in entire extended family to go beyond GCSEs (so didn't have a network of professionals in the slightest!). At A-Level I did alright, but again, we're not talking 3 As. I then went to a good uni and studied law and did well, and again at my post-grad LPC year. But I worked HARD at uni/law school and in comparison to my housemates studying other courses I definitely felt the pressure of workload, amount of reading expected etc. We were/are also expected (as part of law placements, and later in practice) to have a good awareness of current affairs, global politics, economics as all this is interlinked to risk profiles that affect the client's options (businesses in my case). Some of my friends working in other roles happily speak about the fact they no longer watch the news as its depressing, and they can seemingly get by in life without a need to understand current affairs or politics - so they are intelligent in their own area, but don't have a broader level of knowledge of other matters.

oooh! A chance to share an unpopular opinion!!!

Yes, you can do those jobs and be thick as mince. We see it everyday and watch in awe as totally uncritical, illogical thought spills from their lips. Barristers who ‘see the logic’ in freeing rapists, Doctors that think using nurses changing rooms is fine - there’s hundreds of them!

My unpopular opinion is - degree standards are far too low. You can pass a degree knowing less than half of your subject matter.

Let me repeat that - less than half!

A first class degree is 70% - less than three quarters.
The best doctors and lawyers in the country needed less than 75% accuracy to be considered as such.

Exam format lends itself to explanation, rather than yes/no questions, so if you can say something basic impressively with big words and the moderators know you’re from a red brick, you start with a bonus 20 😆

It sounds like I’m being mean to everyone, but when I consider that our average doctor needed a 50% pass rate to get there, you start to realize why standards are so low!

@roses2 we had that dynamic between my sister and I.
She has a city and guilds job as does her DH. My DH and I both went to university.
Same parents, same sink schools as our siblings but our children are graduates.

I am currently mentoring my niece as my sister couldn't be arsed to do it. She has recently diagnosed ADHD which my sister saw as mental illness. We had a ND mother.
My sister was and still is a 'party girl'.

I‘m a (trial) attorney (not in the UK, btw).
School / academics came fairly easy for me.

University/law school (and the bar….) were not, those were definitely more of a „grind“.

It was a combination of hard work, perseverance (or stubbornness…), luck, privilege, natural aptitude and (academic) intelligence in my case.

I do occasionally feel like the odd one out simply because I (/my family) don’t own multiple (or any!) holiday homes in fancy locations…

‘Barristers who ‘see the logic’ in freeing rapists’

🙄 there’s no logic in this comment

People keep talking about six figure salaries - people at the top of law, accountancy, industry, successful business owners, are earning more than £500k nowadays.

Many of those people know how to work smart as well as being smart though - I believe that's the big difference. Realising that at a young age will give you a huge wealth advantage over the course of your earning lifetime.