Boss uses coffee test in every interview and won't employ those who fail

Interviews are nerve-wracking at the best of times, no matter how well you think it went you're always questioning yourself, wondering what you do wrong, did you say something stupid?

But for tech boss Trent Innes, it's not so much what you do as what you don't do, as he claims to have devised a simple test he uses during every interview to decide whether someone is the right fit for the role - and it involves coffee.

Trent, the former MD of Xero Australia, said those who fail to make the grade are blacklisted from his company.

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.

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"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?

"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.

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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."

But if you're one of those who would forgo the cup of java for fear it is bad for your health, then worry no more.

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According to a new study, researchers claim that drinking up to as many 25 cups of coffee a day isn't bad for heart health.

Previous studies have suggested that high coffee intake could increase the risk of having a heart attack or a stroke due to stiffening of the arteries.

However, the study of 8,412 people across the UK found that having two dozen mugs of coffees a day was no different to having fewer than one.