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It was during a journey from the airport to the office that a candidate for the position of chief financial officer at Duolingo lost the position without even knowing it, even though he looked perfect on paper.
The company had been looking for someone for the position for almost a year, and the hiring committee was already convinced. His resume was strong, the interviews had been well evaluated, and there was enthusiasm on both sides.
But the decisive criterion was far from the interview room. On the way from the airport to the office, the candidate was rude to the driver — and had no idea that this would be reported to the company.
According to Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, the company pays drivers to evaluate exactly this type of behavior in candidates for leadership positions.
The CEO made the revelation in an interview with the podcast The Burnouts, by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni. Von Ahn summarized the logic behind the practice: if someone treats those lower in the hierarchy badly, they are likely to repeat the behavior with their team in the future. Therefore, the candidate who seemed ideal was eliminated.
The case, informally called "taxi driver test", is not isolated. Trent Innes, former managing director of accounting platform Xero, told The Ventures podcast that he had adopted a similar method.
He adopts the "coffee cup test": after the interview, the candidate is taken to the kitchen to get a drink; at the end of the conversation, it is observed whether he offers to return the dirty glass to the kitchen or not.
The CEO of the North American bank JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has also argued that the way an executive treats attendants, security guards and receptionists matters as much as his relationship with other executives.
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This is not an institutionalized practice, but the handful of examples point to a bigger question, which recruitment experts in Brazil have also been observing closely: how much does character — and the way someone treats those who do not have power over their career — weigh in on hiring decisions, as much as (or even more than) resume and technical competence?
'An isolated episode does not define character'
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For Eliana Ponzio, human resources director at TozziniFreire Advogados, the way a professional treats the support team is a relevant sign, but needs to be read with caution.
According to her, technical capacity is essential in a law firm, but it is not enough, since the work requires intense interaction between different areas and hierarchical levels and the way a person treats those who do not have decision-making power over their career directly reflects their personal values.
Ponzio considers, however, that an isolated episode does not define anyone's character. For her, what should trigger an alert are recurring inappropriate behaviors with the support team.
This consideration is important because it touches on one of the main risks of the method: subjectivity.
A candidate may be having a particularly bad day, dealing with a personal emergency, or simply come from a cultural background with different social norms than those expected by the evaluator. None of this appears on the resume — and neither should you decide on a hire alone.
CV is no longer enough
If specific episodes are treacherous, the growing interest in signs of character reflects something broader: the technical curriculum itself may have lost its power to differentiate itself in the job market.
This is the reading of Patricia Zito, founder of the recruitment consultancy TeamBuildings, in São Paulo.
According to her, easier access to technical information — given that today it is possible to access practically any specialized content relatively quickly — has made the market start to value behavioral skills more.
"A professional who only has knowledge, but who does not apply it, transforming it into actions, results and problem solutions, is no longer interesting", says the consultant, who cites interpersonal relationships and a proactive attitude as central examples of this change.
She also highlights critical thinking as an increasingly decisive skill, which consists of the ability to analyze scenarios and make decisions that make sense in the real context, not just in theory.
As for character itself, Zito says she notes that it is a requirement that is highly valued by the companies she works with, which associate integrity and coherence of values with the sustainability of their own business.
"We live in a time where values seem to be corrupted easily," she says, adding that this has made companies more attentive to this type of signal.
'Respect for people is non-negotiable'
If in the law firm the hierarchical contact is more veiled, in the industry it is constant and physical — between drivers, operators and field teams, for example.
Bunge, an agribusiness multinational with grain processing and logistics operations in Brazil, deals with this reality every day. For Carolina de Oliveira e Silva, HR director for the company's industrial operations, this proximity makes a leader's behavior even more visible — and more determining.
According to her, technical skills continue to be the basis for a professional to deliver consistent results, but, as the career advances to positions of greater influence, interpersonal skills gain increasingly relevant weight in the evaluation and promotion processes.
"The way results are achieved is as important as the results themselves", he states, citing respect, ethics and support for the development of colleagues as behaviors that support the company's culture.
At Bunge, she says, "respect for people is non-negotiable" — and this includes closely observing how employees, especially in leadership positions, relate to drivers, operators, suppliers and partners.
This attention, according to her, is not just a question of values and has a direct effect on the business results. "The best results usually come from leaders who know the reality of the operation and build trusting relationships with their teams", he says.
In his assessment, proximity to those who are performing the tasks helps to identify risks and opportunities for improvement earlier, in addition to strengthening engagement, safety, organizational climate and employee retention.
How to measure what is immeasurable
If character is difficult to define, measuring it formally is even more complicated.
The two experts interviewed by BBC News Brasil on the topic converge on a central point: the difference between observing behavior and transforming this observation into a structured and defensible criterion.
Patrícia Zito describes some techniques already consolidated in the selection processes she conducts: competency-based interviews, based on the candidate's reports on real situations from previous jobs; length of stay in past jobs; the stated reasons for previous dismissals; and checking references with leaders from past experiences.
But she makes an important caveat: "these strategies reveal trends, not guarantees", as they deal with a human factor subject to unexpected behaviors. According to her, even after years within a company, a professional can break with some essential value, leading to dismissal.
On the legal side, Eliana Ponzio reinforces that any assessment of behavior in a selection process needs to be anchored in legitimate criteria related to the role — never on perceptions about the candidate's private life transformed into subjective judgment.
She recommends mapping these values through structured interviews and practical dynamics, assessing whether the professional's attitude is compatible with the culture and responsibilities of the position.
Zito adds a concern about data protection. She recommends formalizing integrity and reliability criteria only when they are effectively relevant to the duties and risks of the position, avoiding what she calls a generic "character assessment".
In Brazil, any collection or use of information about a candidate, according to her, must comply with the principles of the General Data Protection Law (LGPD), such as purpose, necessity, adequacy, transparency and non-discrimination.
"Instead of recording that a certain candidate 'does not have good character'", explains the consultant, the ideal would be to document which objective integrity requirements are necessary for the role, which procedure was used to evaluate them and which evidence supported the decision.
The bias that the contractor needs to correct
Zito notes that his own clients — that is, the hiring companies — are often a source of bias. She says that it is up to the consultancy not only to conduct the selection process, but to instruct the decision maker himself who, "due to lack of knowledge in the area, may present subjective biases in decision making".
This finding helps to explain why a test like von Ahn's — however well-intentioned it may be — worries recruitment experts: it puts in the hands of a single observer (the driver from whom the CEO receives the report) the power to decide alone about a hiring, even without having a structure, prior criteria or the possibility of challenge by the candidate.
The practical advice
For those looking for a job, the message from the two experts is convergent, even if coming from different angles: soft skills, or interpersonal skills, are not developed in isolated training, but in practice.
Eliana Ponzio suggests a constant exercise in self-knowledge — understanding how you react to setbacks, how you listen to others, how you deal with pressure and feedback.
For those who recruit, she recommends not confusing perception with judgment. In other words, before making a decision, it is necessary to translate impressions into observable criteria, connected to the function, and cross multiple data — trajectory, technique, results and behavior.
Patrícia Zito makes a similar recommendation, but in a different way: structuring the process before trusting intuition.
For her, it is up to companies to define in advance, based on the analysis of each position, which integrity and reliability criteria really matter for that role — and apply them objectively and uniformly to all candidates, documenting what was observed and why.
Only then, according to the two experts, can a selection process generate sustainable value for both the business and the people around it.
In the end, the taxi driver or coffee cup tests may not be exactly what companies should replicate. They are, however, illustrative of a job market in which technical competence has become a commodity and the way a candidate treats those who cannot reach them can say more than any line on their resume.
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