Jobseekers react to 'beer test' Steve Jobs used to interview people at Apple

Steve Jobs was one-of-a-kind - and even his hiring strategy at Apple was somewhat unorthodox.

Jobs might have had a bit of a reputation for being a stickler, but his interview approach was surprisingly laid-back - and apparently involved something called the 'beer test'.

The idea was basically that Jobs would throw more formal interview structures out the window, and at a certain point would take the interviewee out for a stroll and then perhaps go to a bar or restaurant for a drink and possibly dinner.

The conversation would be more casual, with questions from Jobs that were much less obviously interview-styled, and the inevitably loosening that happens with alcoholic drinks would help him to get a sense of whether he actually got on with the candidate and could see himself working them.

If the answer to that was 'yes', well, they were basically hired. Times have changed in the years since Jobs was involved with interviews at Apple, though, and there's recently been discussion about the beer test and whether it was appropriate.

TikTok creator @lifeandworkbutbetter made a video on the topic recently and asked her followers: "Is the beer test something that management should really start looking into?"

After all, nowadays it might be thought that the test involves shades of coercive drinking, and some might not be comfortable taking part. Unsurprisingly, her video got plenty of responses.

The broad response seems to be anti the beer test: one comment said: "Too much room for personal bias" and another more blunt response agreed: "Absolutely not lol".

A different comment said: "this can work for small companies, 5-10 employees, but if you run a large corp like that, you're going to miss out on a lot of talent", which is a very rational way to look at the problem.

Similarly was another response that read: "So…of course I would love to love everyone, but if I only hired people exactly like me, my workplace wouldn’t be as effective. We need balance."

As this says, the risk of Jobs' approach is that it makes it harder to hire those who don't swim in your lane or instantly connect with you, which many people would say isn't that compelling a reason to dismiss someone professionally.

Of course, Apple's hiring record must have been pretty excellent - given the sheer success of the company - but that's not to say there aren't people who might have failed the beer test, but could have been stars there.