Harry Wallop

Good morning.

Well, the do-alone-go-taxi test sort of taps into this desire to find out the character of an individual.

And there is the other one that people always trot out is what's known as the coffee cup test, whereby on the way to the interview in the office, you get taken into the work kitchen and you're offered a cup of tea or coffee.

And it's handed to you in a mug.

You finish the interview.

And then do you take the coffee cup back to the kitchen to have it washed up?

You even wash it up yourself.

Are you the sort of considerate person who thinks about that?

Now, most professional recruiters say this is nonsense because all this test is whether, you know, you've remembered about the coffee cup and you weren't so nervous.

And the same way the taxi test is a very limited way.

So most of them rely on actually and have for some time on quite detailed tests.

psychometric testing, psychological profiling, that these can go on for hours.

You fill in various questions to drill down into your type of character and what sort of personality you have.

So that's what most professional recruiters do.

And they say the taxi test or the coffee cup test is a pretty crude way of doing it.

Exactly.

That's exactly what they're doing.

So they can work out.

I mean, some is quite, you know, it's quite technical and possibly quite boring.

It's working out whether you're good at decision making, whether you're instinctive or not, whether you're a team player or not.