A few days ago Mark Rogers, the UK General Manager for Apple Computers, told me that for a job at Apple and above Manager level there will be around eight interviews.

Actually this came as no surprise. The energy that Apple put into selecting the right individual for their senior appointments is indicative of the energy that they put into everything they do!

However, when mentioning this to some of my business friends, they thought this process too long and protracted and would take up too much valuable time. Yet my argument would be that it’s better to expend valuable time at the start of the process and to get it right than to have to waste it later in clearing up a mess!

This latest video may help you decide

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Over the past two weeks I’ve spoken to two groups about business changes happening in the UK and thought I’d share some of the discussion.

As we all know the past few years has been full of stories of greed, corruption and poor business practice. MP’s expenses, Bonuses for failure, phone hacking, payments to officials by journalists and even match-fixing in sport. No wonder some people wonder if the whole world in on the make!

Marketing being reviewed
So it’s come as no surprise to me that many business teams are looking at their marketing and highlighting their ethical and moral values image to customers and to each other. It includes behaviour of staff both inside and outside of work, guarantee of product satisfaction, standards of production, client handling, remuneration and so on.

Extravagant displays of wealth
But how will this translate in the future? I think that extravagant displays of wealth by companies and their employees are a thing of the past in order to avoid this reflecting badly on companies. Gone are the days when bankers will be photographed swilling Krug after their bonus payments. Not because they aren’t buying Krug or getting a bonus but because the Bank doesn’t want such photographed splashed all over the media and causing adverse comment from clients and regulators. Teams are being warned to avoid displays of wealth that may reflect badly on the employer.

Future displays
One wonders how business will display to clients in the future?
Will offices be more spartanly decorated, how much will be spent on flowers and art, whether to have leather or plastic visitors chairs for reception and how will employees dress?

I also suspect that in the future customers will favour businesses that look as if they don’t spend too much on employee comfort. This will be especially true of professional firms such as solicitors and accountants that charge fees and supply a service. On the other hand they won’t want to look as if they are short of money!

Yet I can’t see the customer abandoning their desire for the latest Apple Iphone and even the latest fashion clothing item.

It looks like being an interesting balancing act for business.

I read with facination Anne Fisher’s article in Fortune magazine  The Most Ridiculous Job Interview Questions asked by some leading companies to job candidates. She does defend them on the basis that the interviewers weren’t looking for correct answers but how the candidate responded to the question. So I asked some of my network how they might answer the questions.

Interview questions mentioned in Fortune include,

“Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are.” — Capital One (COF)

“How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings.” –Deloitte Consulting

“You have three boxes. One contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes. Opening just one box, and without looking inside, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?” — Apple (AAPL)

Lack of expertise to anaylse answer

Most people thought the questions silly and was another “fad” that would probably not last. The reason being is that one has to be quite expert to analyse people’s reactions to situations to deterime “norm of behaviour” and most interviewers will not have that expertise.

Candidate’s rections

I’ve asked some friends of mine what their reactions would be to being asked such questions and here are some of the answers.

a) I would assume that the interviewer was “barking” and probably be impossible to work with.

b) To the bricks question from Deloitte I’d answer “Three” and then add “Red, Grey and Brown”
but my favourite answer was:

C) Answering the “weird” question I’d say “How weird do I have to be to get the job?”