This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Go to a job interview at 1pm
Around 10pm, you get this text: “Hey, Tim. I’m Ben. I work at Vanderbloemen. I was out of the office today. I heard you were there. I heard everyone was really impressed with you. I’m sorry I didn’t see you. I’d like to get in touch with you sometime. I hope it can work out.”
Answers? If yes, how much time do you need?
Your decision could affect your hiring.
The test designer and occasional supervisor is William Vanderbloemen. He runs an executive search firm in Houston. Vanderbloemen’s company uses text message testing after job interviews for certain roles in its demanding company or for jobs where customers expect workers to be super responsive.
Responding to texts quickly could improve your chances of getting the job, at least at Vanderbloemen’s 45-person company.
It seems simple enough. But the text also recalls the continuous pressure that pushed some workers to abandon the culture of frenzy. The text message test joins other unusual quizzes designed to help determine whether a job candidate should receive an offer letter. There is the conversation with the spouse during dinner. And there’s the coffee cup test: A hiring manager shows those coming for interviews where the kitchen is, offers them a coffee, and then rejects those who don’t bring dishes afterward.
The text message test is also a reminder of how difficult it can be to find a job even though the overall U.S. unemployment rate is low and many industries are short of workers. But in industries like tech, where many large employers have cut jobs in the past two years, some workers are forced to send out huge numbers of resumes. And when job seekers get a bite, interviews can drag on from round to round.
Vanderbloemen is quick to point out that how you respond — or don’t — to an after-hours text from someone who says they work with their company won’t stop you from getting a job. And he said even a response within 24 hours would put most applicants far ahead of the competition. “We are just terrible as human beings at responding,” he told her.
But responding within the one-minute response time its sales and marketing teams operate within? “Then we say, ‘Yeah, no, he might be the same kind of crazy guy that we are,’” Vanderbloemen said. “Is this normal for every job? No. Would it work for every company? No.”
The test came after Vanderbloemen hired some people who looked promising but then failed to meet the company’s fast turnaround times for clients, which he says are essential for some roles. This led Vanderbloemen to decide that he needed to measure velocity – before making a hire – for jobs in areas like sales and marketing.
Then, about a decade ago, Vanderbloemen asked one of his team members to text someone who had done great in an interview. The colleague sent the message around 10.30pm and the candidate responded immediately. Bingo.
William Vanderbloemen. Courtesy of Vanderbloemen Search Group via BI
Vanderbloemen, founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group, decided that text messaging testing might be a good measure to gauge whether a candidate would be a good fit for a client with a fast-moving culture. He compared it to performing a successful organ transplant by finding compatible tissue. “Oh, do things the way they do,” he said. “It doesn’t make it normal. It doesn’t make it right. But you guys are compatible.”
Change the location of the interview
Vanderbloemen doesn’t just rely on the text message test. Once, in New York City, he looked back and realized that he didn’t have time to get to the bar where he had planned to meet a job candidate. So he contacted the man and asked if they could meet elsewhere. The man replied, “No, I don’t mind. I like the change.”
Vanderbloemen was impressed. Now sometimes he changes the location of an interview 30 minutes before the scheduled time to see how a candidate responds.
He said it’s not something he always does. Some jobs don’t require this kind of flexibility or speed. Even with text messaging, he said, it’s often someone in his company, not him, who might be sending it. As the boss, he realizes that it is more intimidating coming from him. “It’s not fair because I’m the guy with that name on the door, and now I’m just offensive,” he said.
Establish some rules
Vanderbloemen, who has a degree in religion and philosophy, said his company has guidelines intended to protect its workers from having to work at all hours. After-hours emails should be responded to within 24 hours, he said. Evening Slack messages are rare but should get a response that night “because it’s like Defcon 3,” he said. “Defcon 2 would be if I text you after hours, I need a response like now,” he added. “And if I call you after hours, answer.”
He said the company enforced the rules. That meant he and some colleagues had to abandon a group text about “Game of Thrones” on Sunday evening.
Vanderbloemen said text testing still has its place in a world where some workers try to avoid being on call all the time.
“For our company, especially for certain teams within our company, it’s a direct indicator that you’re as dysfunctional as we are,” he joked.