$25 billion CEO says one-hour interviews are a waste of time—he puts candidates through six hours of tests and wants them to order wine at lunch
Most job interviews last around 45 minutes. Bupa CEO Iñaki Ereño thinks that’s nowhere near enough time to know if someone is actually worth hiring—so he puts candidates through six hours of tests across three separate meetings instead, including a restaurant sit-down where he’s watching whether you’ll order wine.
“I tend not to like people that don’t have any initiative,” Ereño tells Fortune. “Imagine if my drink is a glass of water. I’m very happy with someone who says, ‘Do you mind if I have a glass of wine?’”
In fact, the Fortune 500 Europe boss says he’d prefer that to a candidate walking into the lunch interview, seeing his glass of water and ordering the same.
“I don’t like followers, ‘oh I will have a glass of water as well, I don’t want wine.’ These sorts of things are very important,” Ereño says, adding that he is specifically testing how confident you are. That kind of energy is exactly what separates leaders from the crowd.
“Be more proactive, less passive. Take some risks, take initiatives,” is Ereño’s advice on making it to the top. And ordering wine even when the boss hasn’t is exactly that—showing bold initiative.
Ereño runs one of Europe’s largest healthcare companies: Bupa, which reported £18.2 billion ($24.5 billion) in revenue in 2025, a giant spanning 190 countries and employing over 100,000 people. Getting a senior hire wrong at that scale is expensive—something he’s learned the hard way. Now, watching your drinks order is just one of his tests.
“When I was doing an interview of just one hour, that was not enough,” he says. “I reduced my level of mistakes when hiring people by setting up a system that is based on three meetings, two hours each. That’s my secret weapon.”
The first is a classic two-hour deep dive into the CV. The second moves to a restaurant for breakfast or lunch—and that’s where the real assessment begins. And it’s not just your drink order he’s looking at.
“How you treat the waiter, for me, is an obsession,” Ereño adds. “I want to see how nice you are. You need to be respectful.” He’s watching body language, confidence, how you hold yourself when the formal setting drops.
The third meeting is back in the office, where the questions get more personal.
“And then there is another two hours after that,” he adds. “Asking about your life: What do you like? What do you see in our company? What are you expecting from Bupa? All of those questions.”
Ereño is far from the only CEO who thinks the restaurant table reveals more about a future hire than a cold interview room.
$31 billion Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler interviews senior candidates specifically for 45-minute dinners—he’s watching how they carry themselves off the clock while also listening for one word in particular. Say “I” too much and it signals you’re not a team player.
Khozema also sets aside around 20 minutes for the interviewee to ask questions. If they have nothing up their sleeve? “That’s a pretty big red flag.”
One CEO won’t hire anyone who salts their food before tasting it. Another secretly asks the server to mess up the candidate’s order mid-meal just to see how they react.
Apple’s Steve Jobs had a “beer test.” But instead of actually doing the interview in a restaurant or bar, he’d take candidates on an informal walk-and-talk to find out what they’re like off-duty. He’d then ask himself: “Would I have a beer with this person? Would I talk to him or her in a relaxed way while taking a walk?” If the answer was no, they weren’t hired.
And even if you’re not meeting a potential boss in a restaurant surrounded by waiters, it still pays to be nice to the staff you meet on your way to your interview—wherever it is.
Diary of a CEO founder Steven Bartlett hired someone with “zero” experience because she thanked the security guard by name on her way into the building. Six months later, he called her one of the best hires he’d ever made.