“Unlocking Character: How One Boss’s ‘Salt and Pepper Test’ Could Change the Way You Think About Interviews”

Picture this: you’re sitting nervously across from your potential boss in a job interview, sweat trickling down your back. You’re prepared for the classic “What’s your greatest weakness?” or maybe a poorly-timed dad joke—but what if they spring the infamous ‘salt and pepper test’ on you instead? Yes, you heard that right! Some bosses are so quirky that they hinge hiring decisions on whether you dare to season your food before tasting it. It’s just a taste of the bizarre standards lurking in the interview process! So grab your culinary confidence and brace yourself—you never know when you might need to prove your palate under pressure! Curious to learn more? LEARN MORE.

A boss has ‘based his entire decision’ to hire someone on whether or not you can pass the ‘salt and pepper test’.

As if job interviews weren’t stressful enough, there’s one method that, although is unlikely to come up, is worth being aware of.

So when you’re sat across the desk from your potential new boss, it’s hard to know what you’re going to get.

Will the awful ‘what’s your greatest weakness’ question come up, or are you going to get a borderline out-of-touch dad joke to ‘break the ice’?

The hope is that the recruiter will ask normal things, like ‘what are your salary expectations’ and ‘what do you offer to the role’?

Those two questions alone would skip a lot of the bulls**t, in my opinion.

But if a boss hits you with a ‘salt and pepper test,’ you better watch out.

Will you pass the test? (Getty Stock Images)

Over on Reddit, one user shared that their old boss used to base a whole interview outcome on the very specific test.

They wrote: “A company I used to work for does all-day interviews with multiple people, and one of them is always a lunch interview.

“I heard about a guy who would base his entire decision on one thing – whether or not the person he was interviewing tried their food before reaching for salt, pepper, hot sauce, etc.

“If you didn’t try your food first, you didn’t get a pass from him.”

Now, that might just be the most random thing we have ever heard, how bored must this guy have been?

While the ex-employee wasn’t one hundred percent sure on why their former boss put so much emphasis on this test, they believed it was to do with people trying something without judging it first.

They added: “Glad I didn’t interview with him because I pretty much always add pepper to stuff.”

It’s a pretty arbitrary way to fail someone on an interview (Getty Stock Images)

But this isn’t the only boss with weird interview techniques.

The next one, however, has slightly more grounding.

Former boss of Xero Australia, Trent Innes, said that this interview-hack revealed everything he needed to know about a potential employee.

Speaking on The Venture podcast, he 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 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?

“You can develop skills, you can gain knowledge and experience but it really does come down to attitude.”

So, some things to remember before your next interview: never put salt or pepper on your lunch before trying, and always wash up the coffee cup, and you know all the other unimportant stuff like how many years experience you have and your transferable skills.

Additional words by Dominic Smithers.