“handshake” test — that’s where you just walk up, smile and introduce yourself to someone and watch how they respond: If they react to the unexpected greeting with an enthusiastic smile and greeting back then it’s fair to assume that’s their natural style.
In the service industry, most employees spend the majority of their time responding and reacting to things said, done and requested unexpectedly by people they don’t know. Thus, responding enthusiastically, affirmatively and with a smile to an interviewer that an applicant doesn’t know is a key indication of how they’ll most likely act as an employee when faced with a similar experience with a guest. This simple test, which is hard to fake (not unlike a blush), screens for the things that we can’t teach — that smile and attitude has to come with someone to the interview and the job.
