Manager uses coffee test in every interview and won't hire anyone who fails

A manager has explained a 'coffee test' he performs on interviewees and why if someone fails it, they're not hired.

Interviews are nerve-wracking processes enough already. Now that the pandemic is over, you can no longer hide behind the safety of your computer screen with trackies on your legs and a shirt on your top.

Instead, you have to brave the inside of an office, frantically pulling your hair out the night before over your travel there, what to wear, studying your interviewer's face so you actually recognise them - and that's all before you've even entered the room.

And one manager has a particular test which he uses on people outside of the actual interview room itself too.

Businessman Trent Innes - former managing director of accounting platform Xeno - now works as the chief growth officer at SiteMinder and revealed his 'coffee trick' during an appearance on business podcast The Ventures.

When meeting a candidate for a job role in his company, he revealed he'll always take the potential future employee 'for a walk' to one of their kitchens.

He continued: "And somehow you always end up walking away with a drink."

Presumably declining the offer of a drink is not an option here. You will - no, you must - have a cup.

It's all about the coffee. (Anastasiya Mihailovna / Getty)

He continued: "Then we take that back, have our interview, and one of the things I'm always looking for at the end of the interview is, does the person doing the interview want to take that empty cup back to the kitchen?"

The crux of the test is, if you don't take the cup back to kitchen then you're not the right fit for the company.

He explained: "You can develop skills, you can gain knowledge and experience but it really does come down to attitude, and the attitude that we talk a lot about is the concept of 'wash your coffee cup'."

The businessman went on to explain that it's all about fitting in with the 'company culture' at the office.

Make sure you take your cup back to the kitchen (Luis Alvarez / Getty Images)

So taking your cup back to the kitchen is about doing the small things and being considerate maybe?

If it's about keeping the office clean then according to Innes, it does the trick.

He said: "If you come into the office one day inside Xero, you'll see the kitchens are almost always clean and sparkling and it's very much off that concept of wash your coffee cup.

"It's really just making sure that they're actually going to fit into the culture inside Xero, and really take on everything that they should be doing."

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