The coffee cup test and what NZ job interviews actually assess
In May 2019, Trent Innes, then managing director of Xero Australia, described one of his hiring habits on The Venture Podcast with Lambros Photios. He'd walk interview candidates to the office kitchen for a drink, then watch whether they offered to take the empty cup back at the end.
"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'," Trent said on the podcast. The NZ Herald reported the episode on 31 May 2019 and described the test as his measure of a candidate's sense of ownership.
The clip has come back several times since. Fox Business reported in September 2023 that the four-year-old podcast had gone viral on TikTok, Facebook and Reddit, where many commenters called the test manipulative. Fortune ran it in its Interview Playbook series in April 2025, then ran it again in March 2026.
What recruiters say about it
Some recruiters see value in small behavioural cues. Lewis Maleh, chief executive of global executive recruitment agency Bentley Lewis, said in the Fortune piece that "these little behavioral observations can tell you so much about a person". He described the coffee cup as one piece of a hiring decision.
He also named its limits. "Not every great candidate will think to clear their cup, especially if they're nervous or unfamiliar with your office. Some might even come from work cultures where this wasn't expected," Lewis said in the same article.
What NZ guidance asks of an interview
Employment New Zealand, the government's employment information service, sets a relevance test for hiring. Its guidance says any tests or checks in recruitment "must be relevant to the safe and proper performance of the job" and must not be used to unlawfully discriminate. Its hiring process page says pre-employment screening "must be relevant to the job and/or workplace".
The Human Rights Commission took a similar line when it launched Getting a job, its A to Z of pre-employment guidelines, in August 2008. Dr Judy McGregor, then Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, said the guidelines focused on skills, competencies and experience so employers could select staff against objective criteria. Jacqui Barratt, then president of recruitment industry body RCSA, said in the same release that she'd keep a copy on her desk.
The release also said about 5% of new inquiries and complaints to the commission's Infoline at the time were about pre-employment issues, including job interviews and candidate selection.
Tahatū, the government careers site, describes the interview NZ job seekers should prepare for. It tells candidates to reread the job description, think about what the employer may ask, and prepare examples of how they've used their skills and experience before. For questions about past work, it recommends the STAR method, where you describe the situation, the task, what you did and the result.
What to do before your next interview
Seek NZ's Employment Report for August, released on 17 September, showed job ads up 0.6% on July and 9.7% on a year earlier. Applications per job ad rose 0.9% in July, the sharpest rise in 18 months, after months of easing from a peak Seek recorded in August 2025.
"If you are a candidate looking for your next role, now is a good time," Rob Clark, Seek NZ country manager, said in the report.
Basic courtesy covers the coffee cup. Offer to take your cup back, thank the people who show you around, and arrive on time. Tahatū lists punctuality among its preparation tips and suggests a back-up plan in case something goes wrong on the way.
Then spend most of your preparation on the examples. Match each one to a skill or requirement in the job description, practise saying it out loud, and have a few questions ready about the work, the team and the training on offer.