The answer to this question depends upon the level of intelligence possessed by the person referred to as “neither smart nor intelligent.” The graph below from the Wonderlic Personnel Test and Scholastic Level Exam shows the kinds of employment that match different levels of IQ.
The row labeled career potential shows the spectrum of employment ranging from routine, relatively unskilled occupations at the low IQ levels to the occupations demanding complex cognitive skills at the high IQ levels. As we move from left to right along this employment spectrum, we see that the level of job complexity increases in parallel with the corresponding IQ scores. It is not surprising that the increasing levels of complexity in the jobs match the increasing levels of complexity in the items on the IQ tests.
The graph shows that people in the IQ range 70 – 90, can earn a living in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs such as nurse’s aid, hotel room services, delivery services, etc. The IQ range 91 – 110 contains almost half of the population, so there are a lot of opportunities for employment for people in this range. They may not be considered “smart” or “intelligent”, but people in this range are approximately average in intelligence and many in this range earn substantial incomes.
The good news for people in this range is that they are closer in intelligence to more people than those who have a high IQ. This means that they can more readily relate to others in this range and find a spouse with compatible interests.
Those at the upper end of this range can become a successful entrepreneur, build wealth or become highly educated by developing a passionate interest in something that drives them to work hard on achieving their goals.
While high intelligence offers great potential, tenacity and unrelenting effort always prevails over high intelligence when the high intelligence is not accompanied by an intensity of purpose. This is the moral in the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise.
An important point to recognize is that a person who is not regarded as “smart or intelligent,” may, in fact, be highly intelligent. There are many highly successful people who were not good at academics, or may not have been regarded as highly intelligent, who have triumphed in life. Sir Richard Branson is a person who was never regarded as intelligent in his early life, but became a billionaire through tenacity, risk-taking and insight. You can read a short biography of him at: Sir Richard Branson – Intelligence and IQ .
