"I think about work all the time" (and you had better too, if you want to work here)

Super interesting and quick read from our pals at Business Insider on a method that one CEO of a small but growing media company likes to use as a screening device for job candidates.

From BI:

If Erika Nardini (CEO of Barstool Sports) is going to hire you, first she wants to know you're committed to your job — even on a Sunday at 11 a.m..

"Here's something I do," she said. "If you're in the process of interviewing with us, I'll text you about something at 9 p.m. or 11 a.m. on a Sunday just to see how fast you'll respond."

The maximum response time she'll allow: three hours.

"It's not that I'm going to bug you all weekend if you work for me," she said, "but I want you to be responsive. I think about work all the time. Other people don't have to be working all the time, but I want people who are also always thinking."

if there ever was a clearer sign that the culture (and expectation) of Barstool Sports employees is one of "always on", I can't think of it.

But while some folks who read this might cringe a little bit at the notion of a CEO of a company 'testing' job candidates with a Sunday morning text, I'd counter that the approach is at least honest, and pretty revealing. Better to find out before you take the job that you (almost certainly) will be expected to be responsive, if not actually available, pretty much whenever the CEO, (who is thinking about work all the time), deems it necessary to contact you.

Either that kind of an expectation works for you or it doesn't. For the folks that are that excited and passionate about the company mission to the point where 24/7 responsiveness does not seem unreasonable, then this little text test probably does a decent job of screening candidates.

Better to know in advance, as I said, and better to know when to run for the hills before you decide to take a job working for a CEO who clearly doesn't really care about you when you are not actually working. And that's the trick of her little test.

She doesn't have to care about you when you're not working, because you should be working, (or at least thinking about work), all the time.

Happy Tuesday.