Discussion keeps the world turning.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yuxuan and Xinyu.
Coming up.
Walk into a milk tea shop these days and you might walk out with some crisps or cakes or a surprise snack pack.
Chinese brands are turning sipping into shopping.
Think drinks plus shelves of goodies to eat.
They're cheap, they're easy and they are everywhere.
Is your tea shop quietly becoming a one-stop everything store?
After that, personality screenings are now a routine stop on the hiring track.
But there's a catch.
Critics argue they don't uncover authenticity, they just reward acting skills.
So are employers actually spotting top talent?
Or are job seekers just mastering the art of ticking the right boxes?
Our podcast listeners that you can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts.
Don't forget, you can get in touch with us as well.
Send your voice notes to roundtablepodcast at qq.com.
Once again, roundtablepodcast at qq.com.
And now.
It has become the new norm now, hasn't it?
You walk into a tea shop and you leave not only with your drink, but also perhaps a bag of chips or a box of pastries, or even a mystery snack bundle.
Across the country, tea brands are transforming from simple beverage stores into one-stop lifestyle destinations.
From tea-inspired crisps and designer pastries to shelves packed with popular snack brands, numerous milk tea companies are now betting that customers want more than just a cup of milk.
And I guess for a very very, very long time, China's tea shops.
They've been really popular, of course.
But lately, everybody's talking about this cool new change.
This is kind of a side hustle for a lot of these milk tea or bubble tea shops and it feels like all of a sudden these bubble tea shops are all having another scheme or strategy now, instead of just selling drinks.
These brands are now trying to sell snacks.
And this is what experts call a composite business model.
Because imagine if your favorite ice cream shop or bubble tea shop suddenly started selling amazing cookies, chips and even bread.
That's exactly what's happening right there.
Selling something other than the thing that they usually sell.
It can be so many options.
Chips, crisps, corn flakes, crackers, cookies.
My English vocabulary cannot tell you exactly what they're selling, because there are so many different types.
Gummies, that's one of my favorite.
And spicy konjac strips.
Oh yeah, um you, and they are super cheap.
That is, i think, the point that they're doing it.
Some of them can be only one yuan, two yuan and mostly less than 10 yuan, which means that you can be easily attracted to.
Just okay, i'll.
When i'm buying a milk tea, i just get one or two of these bags of snacks.
When you go to the supermarket, before you check out your items right near the cashier, what do they usually sell?
Gums.
Gums, candy bars, beverages of some sort.
It's impulsive purchasing, right?
You didn't go to the supermarket to buy a pack of gum.
But when you're standing there staring at it, you think, yeah, sure, why not?
I feel like that's kind of the same strategy here.
Yeah, exactly.
And especially when a lot of these apps, they may tell you okay, do you want to add on something after you or before you are going to pay for the drink?
So this is kind of the same strategy.
Yeah, for me, when I order like a cup of bubble milk tea, sometimes these stores they have this minimum price when you order your delivery.
Maybe it's 15 yuan or 20 yuan, but a cup of tea is like 20 yuan.
It's so annoying.
It's very annoying unless you buy two.
But now with with snacks, you know, you can add up some of the snacks that costs like several yuan and then you have reached this minimum price of delivery.
So that's a quick fix for me.
And it's successful so far.
One brand sold over 5 million units of one particular snack.
People are buying these like they are buying their drinks.
Some snacks have become famous online before people even have a chance to taste them.
There was one brand that sold millions of yuan's worth of mini pretzel balls and spicy pepper crackers.
They sold it on Douyin, on social media.
In 30 days.
Pretty good.
This is very successful for them.
Some of them even established the independent snack shops later on, because they have already developed the whole chain into another kind of industry.
And some of the brands they are quite famous for.
I think telling stories, and they have different names.
They have combined packages for them.
And then I think it is really the habit of storytelling, buying some of snacks when buying drinks or simply just, you know, thinking of the brand I am thinking about.
Their snacks are really good.
Yeah.
So I think they have already cultivated the habit of Now when you want to buy some snacks, you go to some of these milk tea brands.
And the thing is that they also, I think they specifically designed for that.
The package of these snacks are really, really small, which means that the amount of the snacks are really small.
So it is really good for maybe a little chill afternoon for one time sweet tooth.
Well, think about that.
Because you leave that shop, right?
And in one hand, you've got your bubble tea.
And in the other hand, you can comfortably hold your small bag of crisps or whatever, right?
So it's easily and quickly consumable.
It doesn't cost very much, it's only a few yuan.
Yeah, this is kind of.
This is kind of genius, because if you go into a bubble tea shop, you're probably at least a little tiny bit hungry.
Yeah right, because you're getting something to drink, which means why not get a snack too?
So that's happiness doubled.
It reminds me of another, like coffee shop.
You know, coffee brand is just launched a new type of bread.
And that bread is so delicious.
And after several times that I would go to this coffee shop not just to buy coffee, but because of the bread, then I would order another cup of coffee instead of other coffee brands.
So that's kind of another good advantage for these companies, why they're trying this side business.
So, looking at the industry perhaps from a wider lens, if you will, this feels like it's something that's here to stay, because this isn't just one brand that's doing this.
This is multiple brands that have kind of adopted this sales strategy, and the numbers prove it to be successful.
In the business world, they call it a kind of a second growth curve.
And since there are already so many milk tea and bubble tea shops, it's hard for them to find new customers customers just by selling bubble tea.
So by selling snacks, they can make more money from the customers they already have.
But if they're all selling snacks, though, which is what they're doing, right?
They're following each other, I guess.
And then it falling to another battle of maybe the quality of the snacks, the flavor of the snacks or the story that they're selling.
Sure.
I mean, it's cool for the customer though, right?
Because it's just another little option when you visit your bubble tea or milk tea shop.
Good luck.
I'm looking forward to that.
I'm not a huge bubble tea, milk tea drinker because I'm more of a coffee person.
But whenever I have it, I absolutely love it.
It's delicious.
So now that there are more snacks available, I'm likely to pop into one of these shops soon.
All right, you're listening to Roundtable.
Coming up next, our personality test during an interview, picking the best hires or just the best performers.
Looking for passion?
How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve.
Today with Xing Yu and Yu Shen.
Personality tests are becoming a regular part of the hiring process.
But instead of revealing who candidates really are, some critics are saying that they're turning job hunting into a performance.
So are companies finding the right people, or are applicants just getting better at playing the personality game?
I didn't realize this.
I've never had a job interview where a personality test was involved.
So I was unaware of this, but apparently more and more and more companies are now employing personality tests into their hiring process.
Fortunately, we got recruited before the hype of the personality tests.
So during this time it appeared and a lot of these companies, they are trying to, or they are making it a standard step recruitment for for a lot of these, like not only multinational corporations, private firms and even major internet companies, they're using these kind of things as a one of the tests you need to go through before you got recruited.
Yeah, But the thing is that MBTI specifically, if we're talking about it, it is designed, originally designed for job recruiting.
Yeah, yeah.
These tests are significant, too.
They can take 20 to 40 minutes to complete.
They have long lawns and so many questions.
Yeah.
And the questions.
I mean, I guess it depends on the type of test, but the questions are often designed in a way where you would say how much do you agree with this statement?
Totally agree or totally disagree.
Yes.
50% agree, 60% agree.
Yeah, yeah.
Something like that.
So there are different ones.
There's the MBTI style questions.
Do you know your four letters, by the way?
Definitely.
I am ISFJ.
How about you?
I've got an ENFJ.
I'm different.
I'm INFP, I think.
You're an introvert.
We all are introverts.
Media people often are introverts.
Anyway, that's a different topic for a different day.
Other tests are available, though.
There's the Big Five personality test.
That's out there that there you'll see things like agree or disagree.
I keep my workplace neat and organized.
I enjoy I enjoy trying new experiences.
I often feel anxious under pressure, things like that.
All right.
So let's just use that one as an example, as a matter of fact, because here's the criticism.
OK, I come in for a job interview and I want this job so badly.
And I see this on the personality test.
I often feel anxious under pressure.
Well, the answer seems pretty obvious to me.
The truth... The truth is... Otherwise.
I feel very anxious under pressure.
But I'm not going to tell you that.
Oh, yeah.
Because I want this job.
And this is the criticism is that these types of tests?
Are they really finding the best candidates or are they just teaching people how to answer these questions correctly?
I have to say that the workplace, it's a little bit, they are like leaning toward extrovert people.
Can I say that?
Because extrovert people seems to, they are more interactive.
They're better at socializing.
You can communicate with them.
That's why a lot of these companies, they like or they want extrovert person.
But when you're doing the test probably I think that is the issue or criticism of all of these phenomenon is that when I am actually doing the question lists, I may just answer from the understanding of what you want.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Like imagine those two questions back to back.
Agree or disagree.
Do you keep your desk tidy and neat?
Of course.
I would.
Who's going to say no?
Right?
Do you feel anxious under pressure?
Yup.
Okay, so your desk is a disaster zone and you feel pressure.
You feel anxiety under pressure.
I'm not hiring you.
This is quite obvious, how you're supposed to answer these questions.
Which leads me to my next question.
Why are companies relying on these things if it's so very clear that these test answers could be manipulated?
I guess that before they launched this type of tests, they haven't thought about that these candidates might not be very honest about themselves and to fake their answers.
So for these companies, I think one of the points that they are getting at is efficiency, because we are seeing thousands or numerous candidates.
They're applying for this dream job.
And how do you assess these recruitments?
To filter large numbers of these candidates quickly and to reduce the workload for interview for interviewers?
And then that can be very good step for them to kind of filter to find what they think as right candidates.
And to be fair, I chose those questions because it supported my argument.
But there are decent questions that come out as well.
For example, do you prefer leading a team or supporting a team?
Would others describe you as competitive?
Do you enjoy following established procedures?
These types of answers, there's no real reason... to lie because there's no clear good or bad there's no clear good or bad right it depends on what the company is looking for so you know i gave you some examples before of where it's it's pretty obvious how to answer them but then there are other ones that could be beneficial too Or this is kind of the first round screening of a huge pool of talents because some of the companies or some specific positions, they require a person to have certain personalities.
That's why they want the candidates to have that maybe specific personality or characteristic, when you have that MBTI or the specific four letters in your personality and um.
But the thing is that yeah, what we're discussing is that there is a saying in china um right when, when you have a new regulation, there's got to be somebody finding the new loopholes.
So there's got to be, you know, people finding solutions and to do.
If they really want the job to do whatever you want them to do.
Actually, there are also online tutorials for these applicants and candidates to teach them.
How to beat the test.
Yeah, how to pass these personality tests.
So that- I believe that was the loophole you were speaking of just a moment ago.
Yeah, some people just got the business opportunity by teaching them how to make you become more qualified for this particular position.
But you know some candidates, they even purchase these question banks, so they have a lot of questions for you to like.
Make practice in advance before this job recruitment.
There are legal concerns here, too.
Lawyers argue that if employers cannot clearly demonstrate a strong connection between a personality assessment and the actual requirements of a position, using such tests as a screening tool could potentially raise concerns about employment discrimination.
These tests can be culturally different right.
Depending on where you're from, how you grew up, a different answer might not be a bad answer.
It just depends.
How do you feel about this?
Have you ever, I mean, I said I've never gone through this experience before.
In my opinion, every job interview is a kind of personality test in a way, right?
They're asking about who you are and as a person what you enjoy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What's your shortage?
That one's the worst.
I feel like in your interview, you are kind of performing too.
You're presenting yourself to these interviewers so that they feel you have this capability of doing this job well.
You have this personality that you can mingle with the colleagues well.
But that may not be the real you.
But during this interview, you have to fake it to some certain extent.
But I guess that for these personality tests too, some people...
I feel like for me, I wouldn't be 100 percent honest, too, when it comes to these kind of tests.
But I understand their intention of, because they want this job very much.
But For these companies these tests are just a reference.
They are not the deciding factor.
And for each person, the real person, every real people, they are complex in their own way.
So you not just during these tests, you cannot know the whole them.
Exactly.
You just cannot 100% trust the result of these tests.
They cannot be 100 accurate, telling the personality that you actually are, even though you answer honestly.
And, I think fortunately, most of the companies.
They just use a little box let you fill in the number or the letters that you belong to, and they're not treating it as the sole determination of who you are.
You know what job interview question I hate the most?
Why would you like to work here?
Because my children require food to survive because they're humans.
That's a pretty common answer, I think, for a lot of people out there.
All right.
Well, we'll leave it at that for a roundtable today.
Thanks for being a part of our show.
I'm Steve for Xinyu and Yuxin.
We ask you to come back again next time, too.
Bye bye.
