Adrian Barich: the method behind the madness of bizarre questions AFL recruiters ask young draftees

Another AFL draft has come and gone, and a precious few young men from around Australia have had their lives changed forever.

We all know it’s a stressful time for emerging footballers.

Their future, livelihood, postcode and maybe even hairstyle can all depend on which club does (or doesn’t) call out their name.

But before they even get to draft night, they’ve got to survive something far stranger: something no other job on earth would dare to attempt.

And that’s the bizarre interviews done by the recruiting staff of AFL clubs.

It turns out the running, jumping and beep testing is the easy part.

Any teenager can do that. It’s the interrogation rooms where things get wild.

In what other job interview would you be tested on your intelligence, resilience, creativity, crisis management, moral compass, hypothetical criminal activity, and your ability to spell supermarket items backwards under pressure?

And I’m not even sure how the footy clubs get away with it, considering some of the kids are under 18.

Imagine a mining grad in Kalgoorlie sitting down for a job interview at BHP and being hit with: “Spell sausage backwards, quickly, and don’t sweat on the chair.”

Over the years, recruiters have unleashed a grab bag of head-scratching classics: “Divide 739 by 3”. “Spell avocado backwards.” “Spell Adelaide backwards.” (Cruel, especially for West Australians.)

I dare you to test some of these out on the young people in your life, or even the older people.

“If your brother had a broken leg in the back seat and you came to a red light, would you run it?”

And that’s just the warm-up. Then it gets philosophical. Here’s a list of questions recruiters have used, leaked to me just last week:

“Is cereal a soup? Defend your position.” “Do you believe in ghosts?” “If aliens landed on Earth, what would you say to them?”

“If you could remove one colour from the world forever, which one would it be?”

Imagine being 17 and suddenly expected to be Einstein, Bear Grylls and the Dalai Lama, all rolled into one.

Then there’s the psychological warfare section. Here are my favourites:

“Tell us every reason we shouldn’t draft you.”

“What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told your parents?”

“What would your ex-girlfriend say about you?”

“What’s the most illegal thing you’ve ever done?”

This isn’t testing footy IQ; this is an ASIO interview.

The random chaos round starts next, with the recruiters moving into the “why not?” category:

“Bark like a dog.”

“Teach us something in 30 seconds.”

“Sing your favourite song.”

And the all-time classic. “Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?”

And as bizarre as it sounds, there is a method behind their madness.

Clubs want to see if the kids can stay calm. Can they respond authentically, and not in a rehearsed way? Can they take a curveball without panicking?

Because AFL life is exactly that: verbally abusive crowds, hostile media (bloody media), pressure, tough coaches, freak injuries, and overconfident teammates.

Footy tests your head as much as your legs.

So these interview questions, weird as they seem, do reveal something.

If a teenager can spell “Washington” backwards while seven recruiters stare at him like they’re looking into his soul, he can probably handle the MCG in a close game.

Is there any other job like this? Not one, in my opinion. Not doctors. Not pilots. Maybe, at a stretch, astronauts. Definitely not CEOs or television people.

No industry on the planet says “Before we hire you, we need to know whether you’d run a red light, fight a duck, lie to your mother, and can recite the alphabet in reverse while panicking.”

So when the next crop of WA boys gets called out, from Albany to Joondalup, Kalgoorlie to the Kimberley, remember this: They’ve survived the beep test. They’ve survived the 2km time trial. They’ve survived the interviews, the riddles, the curveballs, the maths exams, the moral dilemmas, and the spelling bees.

And if they can do all that, they’re ready for anything footy throws at them — even an Eagles rebuild.