Job interview “Coffee Cup Test” and “Receptionist Test” employers use to reveal an applicant’s “true attitude” and “real sense of ownership”
You can develop skills, gain knowledge and experience, but it really comes down to your attitude towards washing your own coffee cup
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| Businesswoman, smiling, with a coffee cup in her hands © Dreamstime | Tatsianama |
Trent Innes, former managing director of accounting software firm Xero Australia, says his “coffee cup test” during job interviews reveals a candidate’s true attitude.
He explained that regardless of what you did inside the organization, the lowest-level task was still super important, which would drive a culture of ownership, which is also why he would even go as far as blocklisting people from working at his company if they failed his “coffee cup test.”
Speaking on the business podcast The Venture with entrepreneur Lambros Photios, Trent said: “I will always take you for a walk down to one of our kitchens, and somehow you always end up walking away with a drink. Then we take the drink 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?”
Coffee Cup Test
Trent further explained that, “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’”.
“You really want to make sure that you’ve got people who have got a real sense of ownership, and that’s really what I was looking for.
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 of that concept of washing your coffee cup, but that sort of led into the interview space.
So, by offering to return your empty cup at the end of the interview, you show your eagerness, which is the determining factor in landing the job.
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.”
However, Trent also clarified that: “I don’t always make them take it back; it’s just an offer, and usually I’d take it back for them, of course — it’s just the sense of offering.”
Receptionist Test
Like Trent, employers also use other personality tests during interviews for the same purpose. The “receptionist test” is another method used to discover candidates’ true nature before hiring or rejecting them.
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| A customer service or receptionist woman with a welcoming smile © Dreamstime | Vgstudio |
An incident was shared on the Reddit community forum about a candidate who was instantly rejected without even getting an interview after failing the “receptionist test.”
The post mentioned that the applicant “blew it within five minutes of entering the building” for being dismissive of the receptionist. “She (receptionist) greeted him (candidate), but he barely made eye contact.
She tried to engage him in conversation. Again, there was no eye contact or interest in speaking with her. He was openly rude and treated her as if she were beneath him. The candidate did not realize that the ‘receptionist’ was actually the hiring manager.
She (the hiring manager) called him back into the conference room and explained that everyone on the team was valuable and worthy of respect. When he knew he was talking to the job decision-maker, his personality changed. Suddenly, he was friendly, open, and relaxed.
[However], due to his interaction with the ‘receptionist,’ the hiring manager did not feel he was a good fit [for the company culture].
Thank you for your time, but this interview is over,” the post ended with advice to “be nice to everyone in the building.”
Waiter Test
As with the “Receptionist Test,” how a person treats a waiter can also reveal a lot about their real character.
“A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter or to others is not a nice person,” said Bill Swanson, retired chairman & CEO of Raytheon Technologies.
The “Waiter Test,” among other “secret tests,” is also used by other CEOs to get to know the actual character of the people or clients they’re dealing with before trusting them with anything, as detailed further in the story below:
