A for­mer man­ag­ing direc­tor has explained what it takes to pass his job inter­view, and it’s all down to a cup of cof­fee.

Noth­ing quite brings on the nerves like a job inter­view for a posi­tion you real­ly want.

‘What ques­tions will they ask? Do I need to wear a suit?’ and ‘How much are they actu­al­ly going to pay me?’ are just some of the things going through your mind at the time.

A for­mer tech boss has devised a test he uses dur­ing every job inter­view (Get­ty Stock Images)

But when it comes to Trent Innes, the for­mer MD of Xero Aus­tralia, it’s not so much what you do as what you don’t do.

Now work­ing as the Chief Growth Offi­cer at Site­Minder, accord­ing to his LinkedIn page, Trent pre­vi­ous­ly shared the sim­ple test he uses dur­ing every inter­view to decide whether some­one is the right fit for the role.

Speak­ing to busi­ness pod­cast The Ven­tures, he said: “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?

Pay atten­tion to the cof­fee cup (Get­ty Stock Images)

“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 cof­fee cup.’ ”

And accord­ing to the boss, it’s all about the ‘cul­ture’ of a work­place and he says his tac­tic seems to do the trick as the office kitchen is always tidy.

He goes on: “If you come into the office one day inside Xero, you’ll see the kitchens are almost always clean and sparkling and it’s very much off that con­cept of wash your cof­fee cup.

“It’s real­ly just mak­ing sure that they’re actu­al­ly going to fit into the cul­ture inside Xero, and real­ly take on every­thing that they should be doing.”

Make sure you know what to do when you’re fin­ished with your cof­fee (Get­ty Stock Images)

In anoth­er inter­view with Rebel Play­book, he added: “We only have two rules inside the organ­i­sa­tion.

“Num­ber one, you can’t eat lunch at your desk.

“It actu­al­ly gets peo­ple to min­gle in com­mon areas and you actu­al­ly get cross- col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“I’m a big believ­er in that, so that’s why we have great open spaces like you can see in the back­ground here.

“Because we actu­al­ly want peo­ple to col­lab­o­rate.

“And num­ber two is you have to wash your own cof­fee cup. Sor­ry, that’s my only two real rules.”