Steve Jobs’ 'beer test' was make or break for Apple applicants
Steve Jobs, the late co-founder and CEO of Apple, will live long in history thanks to his brilliant, innovative mind.
Many pieces of tech that we take for granted today were Jobs’ brain-children - from the Mac to the iPhone to the iPad, Jobs left his mark on billions of lives with simple, high-calibre computing solutions.
Who knows what our phones might look like and do today if not for Jobs ushering in the iPhone?
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A less-public way in which Jobs thought outside the box was in his interviewing technique.
While job interviews are typically pretty stiff and formal affairs, Jobs did things differently.
As.com reported that Jobs was keen to “break” a pattern of interviewees turning up with polished, pre-prepared answers and coming off as scripted and robotic when they turned up at Apple.
With that in mind, he sought to make his interviews more casual.
The question of whether he “would have a beer with this person” was promptly answered by him doing just that: offering his interviewees a beer before sitting down to chat.
He would also take applicants out for a walk, feeling that it was another way to break people’s interviewing walls down.
By loosening up his interviewees, Jobs felt he was more likely to meet their authentic selves and get a better feel for whether they were a good fit.
Of course, relaxing in front of one of the world’s most successful inventors was likely easier said than done.
From Jobs’ perspective, it seems that problem was as big a challenge for him as it was for his interviewees.
He would also often ask questions such as, “When was the last time you accomplished something?”
And he might have followed up with: “What did you do last summer?”
He wasn’t looking for right or wrong answers; it was all about getting to know the candidate.
It’s an interesting approach, especially as sometimes the colleague who ticks all the boxes on paper can prove to be more difficult to work with than their CV might suggest.
He was after the fabled ‘cultural fit’ that’s become so common to job adverts and interview processes.
When you’re running a corporation like Apple, you really need to find the best of the best if you want to stay competitive.
A major part of that is in finding people who are easy to work with, not just those who are exceptional at their specialism.
He explained: “I found that when you get enough A-players together, when you go through the incredible job of finding these A-players, they really like working with each other.
“Because they’ve never had the chance to do it before.”
He was certainly onto something.
After all, you don’t revolutionise home computing or put the internet in everyone’s pocket by staffing your company with anyone and everyone.
That said, it’s probably best not to take this wisdom into your own hands when you go to an interview.
Offering a beer to a prospective boss might go down pretty badly.
Kerri-Ann Roper