Steve Jobs, the guy behind the enormous success of Apple, the iPhone et alia, was a hugely impressive business leader
If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend Walter Isaacson’s splendid biography of him
However, one interesting feature about Jobs missing from the book (or I missed it) is how he interviewed job applicants – a process which has been ‘professionalised’ and attracted all sorts of tests and techniques – some of which are useful, many of which are not
Having conducted a few interviews myself, and so been bombarded with umpteen job descriptions plus IQ, EQ and personality test results (with all their pseudo-statistical correlations claiming to indicate suitability for management, sales or nothing, say) I always eventually decided on the basis of gut feel for whether I could work with the guy or gal, and enjoy their company
As in many walks of life, how the other person makes you ‘feel’ is more important than most other factors involved – it makes one wonder how the widespread use of AI in the job selection process might help cover this need – think UK politics also and the selection of the next Prime Minister
Hence the following brief article about the great man jumped out of the page for me – it was written by Orianna Rosa Royle, Success Associate Editor of Fortune
Hope you enjoy it too
Cheers!
Steve Jobs used a ‘beer test’ for interviews at Apple– if he didn’t want to drink with you, you didn’t get the job |
| 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 outlets, 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. 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:
If the answer was no, that told him something a résumé couldn’t. As I write in Fortune, interview tests are becoming increasingly common—and the bar isn’t always technical. Sometimes it’s whether you’re just good company to be around.
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