1. Outside of standard benefits, what benefits should a company offer employees?
2. What should the national minimum wage be?
3. How many sick days should be given to employees?
4. How often should employees get raises?
5. How do you feel about guns?
6. What are your feelings about employees or clients carrying guns?
7. What are your feelings about safe spaces in challenging work environments?
8. In a creative environment like The Silent Partner Marketing, what do you envision work attire looking like?
9. Should “trigger warnings” be issued before we release content for clients or the company that might be considered “controversial”?
10. How do you feel about police?
11. If you owned the company and were to find out that a client is operating unethically but was a high paying client…how would you handle it?
12. When was the last time you cried and why?
13. You arrive at an event for work and there’s a major celebrity you’ve always wanted to meet. What happens next?
14. What’s your favorite kind of adult beverage?
15. What’s the best way to communicate with clients?
16. What’s your favorite thing to do in your free time?
17. What are your thoughts on the current college environment as it pertains to a future workforce?
18. What’s your typical breakfast?
19. What’s your favorite drink when you go to a coffeehouse?
20. How do you handle bullies?
21. How do you handle it when your ideas are shot down?
22. What do you do if a coworker comes to the table with an idea and it sucks?
23. What does the first amendment mean to you?
24. What does faith mean to you?
25. Who is your role model and why?
26. "You're in Starbucks with two friends. Someone runs in and says someone is coming in with a gun in 15 seconds to shoot patrons. They offer you a gun. Do you take it? What do you do next?"
27. What does America mean to you?
28. You see someone stepping on an American flag. What do you do?
29. What does “privilege” mean to you?
30. What’s more important? Book smarts or street smarts? Why?
Kyle Reyes, the CEO of Silent Partner Marketing, composed the above test to weed out employment applicants who wouldn’t be a good fit to his company’s culture, work atmosphere, and clientele. As he puts it, a Silent Partner employee won’t find any “safe spaces” to which to flee when he encounters something that makes him uneasy, so an applicant who believes himself entitled to such “protection” would be a bad bet.
I find this stance admirable. However, in his interview with Fox Business’s Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, Reyes also said that most of the questions on the test don’t have a “right answer.” That’s a mite troubling. Who scores them? How does he decide who “passes” and who “fails?” Such considerations are at least as important as the resolve required to confront applicants with such a test. (And may God help Silent Partner if it should ever unknowingly entrust those decisions to a “covert snowflake.”)
But it tickles me that Reyes’s test has been solicited by a whole lot of other corporate executives...many of whom have said they need to figure out how to use it without getting in trouble themselves!
I don't think the particular answers are as important as the justification that would be the reasoning for them.
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious that some people and how they answer would probably exclude them from employment. For those who get past this point I would continue their interview process.
If I used this test, I would use the answers to guide my interview. I would only need to review a few of the answers that I found out of any norm to try to figure out who that person really was that I was interviewing.
The entire notion that Kyle Reyes is using is a brilliant approach to weeding out a lot of the riff raff that applies for a job who should never be considered. Someone who tries to put the 'RIGHT ANSWER" in each question would stand out as much as a bleeding heart liberal who would most likely be unsuitable for a profit based company anyways.
All in all, I applaud the concept.