Hiring strategy | Why the 'coffee cup test' reveals the bitter truth about recruitment

Earlier this month, Trent Innes, who heads an Australian accounting software firm, told The Venture Podcast that he uses one key interview technique to help him decide whether a candidate would be a good hire or not.

He told the publication: “If you do come in and have an interview, as soon as you come in and you do meet me, 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, and the attitude that we talk a lot about is the concept of 'wash your own coffee cup.'"