Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
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Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#2Is there a citation for this? This article appears on dozens of low-quality chumbucket news sites, but the only citation I can see after looking at a handful are other sites on which the same paraphrased article appears.
This seems sort of out-of-character for Jobs, who had a reputation of being sort of an intense, uptight weirdo.
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#3I wonder where they would go for the beer. BJs, perhaps?
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#4Wondering if anyone knows did Steve Jobs consumed alcohol in any form?
We all know he did do acid.
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#5>Well, considering Apple’s place in the world and our lives today, it seems like his interviewing process and ‘beer test’ was pretty successful.
Or just that once someone has gotten through the level of screening needed to get 1:1 time with Jobs, the "beer test" is mostly a sanity check.
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#6interested to hear what other hners think about this. anybody did this for interviewing before? i myself had a beer with my phd supervisor as our first meeting, not sure this really help knowing whether we'd get along because turns out we didn't
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#7While I appreciate the idea, and I generally don’t think it’s a bad one (personally I prefer maybe a coffee interview, some of the best jobs I have had had a more casual conversation like this).
I worry about the potential for figuring out someone’s age or just if someone doesn’t drink.
I will never forget being offered a beer in an interview before I was 21. I refused without stating my age (I still got the job) but it was a bit of an awkward situation. For the record this was a tech job.
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#8I'd imagined Jobs more of a cider person.
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#9This works if you're already able to screen for ability and desire. Like if you know everyone you're talking to is good and you want to choose who you'd work with, going for beer is great. On the other hand, I've interviewed and even gone for beers with people that seemed great and I'd want to hang out with, but when it came to work were useless and almost hard to believe it was the same person.
For better or worse, that's why there are coding tests (for example), because likeability and competence are orthogonal traits and you can't assess the latter from the former.
Re: Steve Jobs had a “beer test” he used for job interviews
#10> This would help the prospective employee to open up and relax
It's always funny to see this kind of example come up in stories about Jobs.
Contrary to whatever the specific example is intended to convey about him, this was clearly a _torturing_ issue for Jobs himself, at some level. It was not generally easy for him to open up OR relax, not by a long shot.
His personality is (broadly) similar to Tucker Carlson's, notably bouncing around this perpetual public image dichotomy of "pr*ck vs gentle guy".
So, there are just piles, even veritable _mountains_ of disturbing experiences. Wow what a jerk! Etc.
Between which, in the details you get these funny but oddly-affecting moments where you may just realize that the _aspirational_ self for these people _themselves_ is, in fact...
...somebody you'd want to have a beer with [0].
I sympathize, but it's too bad this issue is so easily talked around in its complexity.
(There's also a fascinating counterpart you can get with Mister Rogers-types, who will occasionally reveal a rather brutal tendency toward being rudely controlling toward various people in their circle, etc. Those guys are like, "relaxing or having a beer is nice...but have you ever been really intensely... EFFECTIVE?")