Job seekers have discovered that Olive Garden requires a personality questionnaire in which AI characters act out hypothetical scenarios as part of its hiring process.
Olive Garden is just one of a few restaurant chains relying on testing provided by conversational recruiting software Paradox.ai. Quizzes have been discussed online before, but a recent TikTok video has reignited the conversation.
Last month, a TikTok user named Jackson Haws shared a video of the assessment he had to complete while applying for a waiter's job at the restaurant chain. Haws' clip showed his computer screen showing AI-generated characters, all with light blue skin and neon navy hair, standing in a dining room.
After showing a character with several slices of pizza on his plate and his colleague walking towards the empty box without lunch, Haws had to reveal whether or not he identified with the pizza pig.
“For whom? For what? What kind of dog shit test is this?” said. “Hey, guys, step up. This isn't science.”
However, some of the prompts became more confusing: one showed an AI character looking at a painting and another asked if they were wearing costumes. “I'm trying to wait tables,” he said. “I'm trying to put food on people's tables.”
“This is crazy, how much they are asking me,” he added, while indicating on his computer screen that he was just at the beginning of the long questionnaire. “Like, do any of these carry any weight? Are there any that I might say the wrong thing to? I don't understand.”
Social media users criticized the questionnaire in the comments of the video, which has more than 900,000 views.
“It's degrading, honestly, what the fuck,” one wrote, while another added: “Holy shit, the job market sucks. This is crazy.”
“This seems like a test Sims would take to be assigned to a career,” a third wrote, while a fourth joked, “I feel like the test here is whether you're willing to do the dumbest tasks on planet Earth to get a paycheck, which is actually a requirement to work at Olive Garden.”
Haws shared a statement with the independentsaying, “I finished the assessment, he told me I was a 'strong leader' and a week later I received a rejection email. There was never an interview or further interaction. I found the experience disrespectful and dehumanizing.”
the independent has contacted Olive Garden for comment.
This isn't the first time AI quizzes have drawn attention online. In 2024, a TikTok user named Katrina said she took the test while applying for a job at Olive Garden. His video showed the same blue AI-generated character also standing in front of a painting.
“This one is particularly confusing. Is there a right answer?” Katrina said in her video. “Wouldn't they hire me if I said I didn't understand painting?”
Olive Garden is not the only company that has relied on these personality tests. In 2024, 404 Media reported that McDonald's and FedEx were using the same assessments.
At the time, social media users took to a viral, archived Reddit post to question and mock the viral tests, with one writing: “I don't understand what the point is here. Are they trying to profile you without asking for a photo or a video or something? Are they trying to ask you what your skills are? Whatever it is, it seems very sketchy to me.”
“Holy crap. I'd probably walk past that place if they subjected me to something like that,” another added.
