This is most likely to be used in a comedic setting, though it could happen in a more serious piece. Of course, it is more likely to have a justifiable reason in serious media. However, this does not count if it's a Secret Test of Character.
See also Heroism Equals Job Qualification.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Hahari has been shown to hire at least a few people because she thought they were cute, either as staff at her mansion or as faculty at Rentarou's school.
Comic Strips
- One Andy Capp strip has him go to an interview for a job he doesn't want.
Interviewer: You afraid of hard work?
Andy: Petrified.
Interviewer: A clockwatcher?
Andy: Can't keep me eyes off it.
Interviewer: Come in, you're the first honest lad we've had all week.
Films — Live-Action
- Donnie Brasco: Played With. Donnie exploits this to pose as a jewel expert/thief in order to infiltrate the Mob through Lefty by claiming the diamond that the latter got as collateral is a "fugazy", a fake.
- Fight Club: Played With. In order to join "Project Mayhem", candidates have to pass a test where they are left standing on the front porch of the Paper Street House for 3 days without food or shelter, enduring constant criticism, and told to leave. If they last this long, they are allowed to stay at the house and train becoming the "Space Monkeys". Other requirements are articles of black clothing and enough money for possible burial.
- (doubles for source material Fight Club)
- The Last Starfighter: The Star League hires pilots by seeing who does the best at video games, and seed arcades with their training game cabinet.
- Men in Black: Agent K invites J to the M.I.B.'s training facility, for a tryout, after witnessing him track an alien on foot. J ends up competing with marksmen and top military officers in various tests of skill and mental acumen. During the written portion of the exam, the others tried using their chairs to write on, while J was the only one with sense enough to make use of the table. However, it was during the marksman exam, that J also demonstrated that he was not only keenly observant but could think outside the box. The others simply fired at whatever looked like a monster, while sparing the civilian targets, as one would expect. J fires a single shot and kills "Little Tiffany". When Zedd asks why, J explains:
James Edwards: Well, first I was gonna pop this guy hanging from the street light, and I realized, y'know, he's just working out. I mean, how would I feel if somebody come runnin' in the gym and bust me in my ass while I'm on the treadmill? Then I saw this snarling beast guy, and I noticed he had a tissue in his hand, and I'm realizing, y'know, he's not snarling, he's sneezing. Y'know, ain't no real threat there. Then I saw little Tiffany. I'm thinking, y'know, eight-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, bunch of monsters, this time of night with quantum physics books? She about to start some shit, Zed. She's about eight years old, those books are WAY too advanced for her. If you ask me, I'd say she's up to something. And to be honest, I'd appreciate it if you eased up off my back about it. [Beat] Or do I owe her an apology?
- J got the job, the others had their memories wiped and were sent home.
- Of Pups and Puzzles: This 1941 short film purports to be a documentary (it's actually a scripted Mockumentary) showing the new tests that job applicants are being given as they apply for work in the expanding war industry. The film shows some very elaborate and frankly impractical and excessively time-consuming job application tests, like flipping poker chips to test manual dexterity, firing a gun (!!!) to see how the applicants respond to a sudden surprise, or staging a logic puzzle in which applicants have to use two wooden planks to cross a pool.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze: To join the Foot, Keno has to remove training bells from a dummy silently in the dark. Raphael does it for him, and places all of them into Keno's hands.
Jokes
- Everybody can build a bridge that can stand, only engineers can build a bridge that can barely stand.Explanation:
Literature
- In W. Somerset Maugham's story A Friend In Need, a businessman tells the narrator/Author Avatar of his meeting with a Remittance Man type guy who wanted a job in his firm. The businessman says that he will extend a position if the guy can swim a stretch of water which he himself did in his youth, but which will be difficult for the Remittance Man on account of his wild lifestyle. The guy drowned, and the businessman casually remarks that he didn't actually have a position open — he basically caused someone's death For the Evulz.
- The Blood of a Dragon: When the protagonist is trying to be taken on as a magician's apprentice, most branches of magic do a practical test of his aptitude in one way or another — except sorcery, where he's just asked "a variety of peculiar questions, mostly dealing with numbers and unlikely hypothetical situations."
- The Imperial Examination gets parodied in Interesting Times with the Examination for the Post of Assistant Night-Soil Operative, which tests the candidates on poetry, literary criticism, and music.
Rincewind turned the paper over a couple of times. There didn't seem to be any mention, anywhere, of words like "compost" or "bucket" or "wheelbarrow". But presumably all this produced a better class of person than the Ankh-Morpork system, which asked just one question: "Got your own shovel, have you?".
- "The Red-Headed League": The titular League seems to exclusively employ red-headed men for meaningless tasks like copying out the entire ''Encyclopedia Britannica''... because it's actually a front for some bank robbers to tunnel into the bank next door to the red-headed man's other workplace while he's out.
- In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the sorcerer hires the boy because he can't read — doesn't help him much, though.
Live-Action TV
- Monk: In the episode "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall", Monk finds out that Eileen Hill hired her secretary Maria Schechter by leaving flyers for the job at a Lamaze class (where they would be seen by pregnant women), and having the candidate who showed up give a urine sample, claiming it was for a drug test. It turns out the real purpose was to get a positive pregnancy test to show the man she was having an affair with, in order to convince him to leave his wife; instead, the man murdered her.
Music
- Art Carney's "Song of the Sewer" is sung from the perspective of his The Honeymooners character Ed Norton, a sewer worker, in which he explains the necessary qualifications.
I work in the sewer. It's a very hard job.
You know they won't hire just any old slob.
You don't have to wear a tie or a coat.
You just have to know how to float.
Pro Wrestling
- John Laurinaitis became infamous for the real-life practice of hiring women for WWE who modelled in magazines, and not those that showed actual talent or inclination for the business.
Puppet Shows
- Fraggle Rock: In "All Work and All Play", Cotterpin got her job as the Architect's apprentice because she, unlike the other Doozers, did not like to build constructions — she even ran away from the ceremony of taking the helmet and becoming a builder. This reminded the Architect that he, too, in his youth, had refused to take the helmet, preferring, like Cotterpin, to draw. This, in turn, inspired him to invite her, when she returned home that evening, to become his apprentice.
Tabletop Games
- In BattleTech, an infantry soldier or vehicle crewmember who managed to capture an enemy Battlemech intact (or at least in a fixable position) will often be offered the option of becoming the mech's next pilot.
Video Games
- Genshin Impact: Margaret hired the underaged Diona for her Cat's Tail Inn just because Diona's cat-like features were just too cute to not go with the cat-themed tavern.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Bolson's construction company only hires people whose names end in "-son." This also applies to people who don't even do construction, such as the members of each race that you need to populate Tarrey Town with in the "From The Ground Up" sidequest.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: Elliot's interview with Mr. Tensaided for a position at a video rental store goes poorly. Susan namedrops that Elliot knows Cheerleadra, and gets hired instantly.
- Manly Guys Doing Manly Things: seems to hire people for, among other things, their pectoral girth. The only person who has avoided this so far is Jared, by virtue of the Commander's interest in his story and making Pokémon battles interesting to watch.
- Questionable Content: Tai hires Marten on the spot for a job in the college library because he notices that the application form is written in iambic pentameter.
Web Original
- Noob: La Croisée des Destins: Gaea is a Starving Student living off a scholarship that she's trying to stretch as long as she can according to All There in the Manual. In the MMORPG that she's playing, she manages to put a whole in-game faction in debt to her via earning in-game currency as a Con Woman with a thing for Blackmail, saving it for years, spending it all in creating a shortage of basic materials in a time of high demand and reselling it all at inflated prices. This impresses a minor character enough to offer to hire her into a high-level job in a notoriously corrupt bank.
Western Animation
- On King of the Hill, Hank hired workers based on their knowledge of football. This bit him in the ass when he hired a drug addict who was a Cowboys fan.
Real Life
- One Urban Legend of Zelda in The '80s held that the American government kept a close watch on Missile Command high scores just in case WW3 did break out and they'd need people skilled at shooting down missiles.
- The Pony Express would only hire orphans, as they deem the job too dangerous for those who would have families that would miss the riders should they die.
- During World War II the British government would hire future codebreakers by using crossword puzzles in newspapers.
- The skills required for a Chinese Mandarin in the Imperial Examination leaned surprisingly toward the artistic.
- Sports Clips, a chain of barber shops, only hires female barbers who know a lot about sports. The idea is to get your hair cut by a pretty woman who can discuss last night's game.
- An arm of Ogilvy & Mather hired someone who gave the best pitch to get someone to buy a simple, normal red brick.
- In some Greek taverns or inns, especially those across the islands, owners will offer discounts, free services or even supplemental income to those clients who take care of themselves, not requiring room service. Bonus for those particular travailing tourists who offer to cook foreign dishes. This is, of course, a life hack that serve many couch surfers as establishments that employ such techniques are not looking to make a profit but rather make it a progress forward in busy seasons.
- During early maritime travel, not all ships had a doctor, and those that did required a male-only staff. Logically, but still surprising to modern views, this staff was usually comprised of cooks and butchers, as they were able to clean wounds and sterilize cloth and utensils and keep everything under control, especially when they had to deal with gruesome wounds or amputations. This unusual practice lasted all the way into World War I and is the origin of the saying "they butchered him" with regards to surgical procedures with questionable results.
- Corporations around the world look for team counselors, middle management, and client relations fulfilling positions from people in educational systems. Argument for this is that if they can deal with kids, the younger the better, they surely can deal with the most obnoxious, evolved form, among them: the client.
- Penalty and correctional systems around the world have work details comprised of inmates, mostly engaged in construction, digging, making roadways, and laying concrete foundations — mindset being "If they've hit rock bottom, might as well construct a career out of it". This is actually the reason most construction companies don't hold a criminal record accountability towards their workers.
- Thomas Edison gave any potential employees a 146-question form to fill out, full of general-knowledge trivia questions — anyone who couldn't answer at least 90% of them correctly would be shown the door, regardless of their other qualifications. His reasoning for this was that, while he didn't much care if someone he was hiring knew these random facts, he wanted to test their memory to make sure they wouldn't forget any knowledge critical to the job.
- Atari recruited its first assembly line workers directly from unemployment lines.
