Most job candidates walk into interviews armed with polished answers, rehearsed weaknesses, and a list of researched questions aimed to impress. But Apple’s Steve Jobs reportedly had a far less conventional way of deciding who got hired: the “beer test.”
Instead of trying to catch candidates out with a trick question or quizzing them on the latest iPhone, the late cofounder of the $4.3 trillion tech giant wanted to know something much simpler: Would he actually enjoy grabbing a beer with them?
According to multiple reports, Jobs would even take candidates on an informal walk-and-talk interview to deliberately test whether he could get along with them outside the office. The so-called “beer test” wasn’t really about alcohol. It was about seeing whether a candidate could drop the corporate act long enough to have an actual conversation—and be pleasant to be around.
As AS USA reported, Jobs would ask potential hires questions like, “What did you do last summer?” to get the conversation going. There were no right or wrong answers, but it probably wasn’t good news if the chat was awkward, draining, or nonexistent.
That’s because at the end of the saga, Jobs would ask himself: “Would I have a beer with this person? Would I talk to him or her in a relaxed way while taking a walk?” If the answer was no, that told him something a résumé couldn’t.
Jobs’ ‘beer test’ may sound unserious compared to today’s increasingly popular Myers-Briggs assessments and 90-minute exams. But the Apple cofounder insisted his recruitment strategy was anything but.
In a 2008 interview with Fortune, the late tech billionaire said that finding the best people for the job is like “finding the needles in the haystack… I take it very seriously.”
By then–just three years before his death—Jobs said that he’d interviewed over 5,000 candidates and that competence alone wasn’t enough to impress him. Yet there was only so much he could learn from a standard one-hour interview.
“So in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut,” he said. “How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged?”
Jobs is hardly the only business leader to shake up the traditional interview format.
As Fortune has previously reported, Gary Shapiro, former CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, has his own make-or-break test: He asks candidates when they can start. If they say “straight away” while still employed, he says it’s a red flag because they’re willing to leave their current boss high and dry.
Other CEOs have used similarly odd-sounding tests to gauge personality. Some watch how you treat the receptionist when you walk in, or whether you wash your coffee cup after the interview. Some ask candidates to dinner. Others go even further, asking the waiter to deliberately mess up the candidate’s order. The goal is the same: To see how candidates really behave when the formal setting drops. Because how someone treats a waiter who gets the order wrong tends to reveal more about their character than any answer they’ve prepared.
Even Chanel, a 115-year-old luxury house synonymous with heritage and exclusivity, is looking past credentials to assess who candidates actually are. Claire Isnard, Chanel’s recently retired chief people officer, told Fortune that “the first thing that we look for is personalities”—above even skills or talent. And those with “big egos” don’t get hired.
In the end, being the nicest person in the room could get you further than being the smartest.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy once said that “an embarrassing amount of how well you do, particularly in your twenties, has to do with attitude“—because positive people pick up advocates and mentors faster. In other words, be someone people actually want around, and you may just land that job.
CEOs, Fortune wants to hear from you: What are your hiring red flags? Do you have any make-or-break questions? Get in touch Orianna.Royle@fortune.com
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