When Walt Bettinger, chief executive of Charles Schwab, is thinking about hiring someone, he invites them out to breakfast. He arrives early, takes the waiter to one side, hands over a large tip and tells him to mess up his guest’s order. He then sits back and watches the candidate’s response.

“That will help me understand how they deal with adversity,” he recently told the New York Times. “Are they upset, are they frustrated or are they understanding? Life is like that, and business is like that. It’s just another way to get a look inside their heart rather than their head.”

As he doesn’t reveal his favoured response to getting scrambled eggs when you’ve asked for poached, I’ve been trying to work it out for myself. When candidates greet the screw-up with silence, does that make them craven wimps? Or could it suggest they are pragmatic and care more about landing the right job than the right breakfast?