“Unlocking the Genius: The Surprising ‘Beer Test’ That Revealed Steve Jobs’ Secret to Hiring the Best at Apple”

Ever been through the grueling experience of prepping for an interview only to discover it’s not a formal sit-down but a casual beer with the CEO instead? Well, for some brave souls hoping to land a gig at Apple during the era of the legendary Steve Jobs, this wasn’t just a wild rumor—it was part of the hiring playbook! This quirky approach, famously dubbed the “beer test,” was Jobs’ unique way of sifting through candidates. Instead of the standard back-and-forth of rehearsed answers, he wanted to sip a cold one and see the real person behind the polished resume. What’s the philosophy behind such a laid-back encounter with the head honcho? Let’s dive into this unconventional hiring tactic that aimed to blend camaraderie with corporate genius. LEARN MORE

Preparing for an interview is often a pretty tiresome experience, which involves a lot of time pre-empting questions, memorising the company history and making sure you ask your potential employer a solid question before leaving.

So imagine if you sunk hours and hours into preparing, only to rock up for your interview and finding out that it entailed heading out for a beer with the CEO?

Well for Apple employees under the reign of the late Steve Jobs, this was apparently all part of the hiring process.

Nicknamed the ‘beer test’, Jobs’ aim was to get to know his candidates outside of their scripted answers, surprising his potential employees by taking them out for drink and getting to know them beyond their strengths, weaknesses and phony five-year-plans.

Steve Jobs was able to make Apple the major success in the technology world (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But what was Jobs’ reasoning for this wacky interview tactic?

While the scenario sounds like the perfect set up for a trick question, it seems like Jobs had no intention of catching candidates off-guard. Instead, he would hit them with queries such as: ‘What did you do last summer?’ or ‘When was the last time you accomplished something?’.

He didn’t exactly look for any right or wrong answers either, he was just looking to get to know the candidate better.

Now you may be wondering what Jobs aimed to get out of such a set-up, considering that companies, particularly world-leading, ultra competitive ones, tend to hire the best person for the role – not those who might make for great drinking buddies.

Jobs did previously explain the sort of candidate he’d be looking for when hiring, as well as why it was so important to have the right group of people working together.

“I found that when you get enough A-players together, when you go through the incredible job of finding these A-players, they really like working with each other,” he said, for those who are unfamiliar with the term ‘A-players’ it’s business speak for top performers in a company.

Beers with the boss? Sounds terrifying (Getty Stock Images)

“Because they’ve never had the chance to do it before.”

And it would certainly seem like this unorthodox approach might just work, judging by the amount of Apple products you see out and about in the wild everyday.

Although you’d imagine that any employee who made it to the fabled ‘beer test’ most likely went through several rounds of gruelling conventional interviews first.

It would seem that Jobs’ curveball questions didn’t cease with an offer of employment either. Former senior vice president of industrial design and chief design officer Jony Ive revealed that the late CEO would enquire about the number of times he’d said ‘no’ every day.

According to the former Apple staffer, Jobs’ view was that saying no would ‘create focus’, leading to increased productivity and (perhaps most crucially) increased output.