The Debate: Should companies use secret hiring tests like Duolingo?
Should companies judge candidates on secret hiring tests like Duolingo, or is it an invasion of privacy? We hear both side’s of the debate
YES: The genius of the taxi test is is catches people off-guard
Every entrepreneur considers him or herself a brilliant judge of character. Most of us aren’t. Why? Because we’re too optimistic. If we weren’t, we’d never have started our businesses in the first place.
Add to that the fact I spend much of my working day staring intently into people’s eyes and you might understand why I once thought I could never make a bad hire.
Until I did. Then again. And again. So I love the idea of the ‘taxi test’ – anything to prevent another painful appointment.
During nearly a quarter of a century running my own brand, I’ve hired many wonderful and inspiring people but also been fooled by a significant number of disasters.
Like the ‘social media guru’ so skilled she didn’t actually know how to open Instagram. Or the ‘highly experienced spectacles salesman’ who turned out to be a sacked airline pilot who’d never been near an optician. Well, I guess pilots do have 20:20 vision.
Then there was the ‘former CEO’ who briefly ran my operations in the Far East. A few weeks in, I had a hunch something wasn’t right so called his old office. They’d never even heard of, let alone been managed by him.
I’ve tried trial periods, psychometric tests and numerous other methods but have yet to find a foolproof recruitment approach.
Good people exaggerate to get jobs, bad people lie. It’s human nature.
But the genius of the taxi test is you catch them off-guard. Before the mask is lifted. That’s when true character emerges.
Then, like wearing a perfectly crafted pair of glasses, everything snaps into focus.
Tom Davies is founder of tdtomdavies.com
NO: Hiring should be evidence-based, not instinct-based
Secret hiring tests may look like a clever way to discover more about a candidate’s attitude or character, but concepts like the taxi test are used to establish more of a cultural fit, rather than a candidate’s aptitude or ability for a certain job role. Whilst the premise is simple, I question whether secret hiring tests deliver what they promise in terms of effectively shaping hiring decisions.
These tactics can introduce bias, inconsistency and guesswork into what should be a structured process. By assessing candidates based on situations they do not know are part of the assessment, we quickly dilute transparency and fairness. Can we really expect anyone to show their best potential if they don’t know they are being assessed? Or if that assessment is so far removed from the role they have applied for?
The biggest risk with secret hiring tests is that they reinforce subjective interpretations. Aside from behaviours which would be treated as misconduct in the workplace, what one employer might see as ‘polite’, another might call ‘quiet’. Without a clear process, cultural differences, neurodiversity or even simple nerves can be misread.
Rather than finding the best talent, secret hiring tests risk favouring those who simply match an interviewer’s personal expectations, reintroducing bias that should be avoided in the hiring process. Not only that, are secret hiring methods like the taxi test not an invasion of privacy?
Hiring should be evidence-based, not instinct-based, so the most reliable approaches use structured interviews, relevant assessments and criteria – methods which are proven to accurately identify high-performing individuals and ensure hiring is fair and human.
Barb Hyman is the founder & CEO of Sapia.ai
THE VERDICT
THE CEO of Duolingo recently revealed he uses an additional metric to assess prospective job candidates: the ‘taxi test’, in which drivers are paid to take candidates to the office for their interview, and assess them on the way. “As they pull up outside the driver can nod or shake their head,” he explained on a podcast, adding that he had once turned down a prospective chief financial officer who had otherwise excelled due to their taxi cab manner. It’s the kind of old school test with a charm you imagine Mad Men’s Don Draper using, which naturally means it’s not without its flaws.
As Ms Hyman raises, such tests raise ethical – potentially legal – quandaries (is it right to secretly monitor someone like this?) as well as efficacy ones (does it matter if a software developer isn’t chatty to their cabbie?). Maybe it does, and that’s the employer’s prerogative, though we imagine there are probably less intrusive ways to monitor this (going for a coffee, say?). Above all though, there might just be one major flaw with Duolingo’s secret assessment: they’ve just told everyone about it.