Pangram's 'favorite snack' job question filters out AI applicants, cuts review 60%
japie06 · reddit · 2026-11-14
Pangram CEO Max Spero shared a clever application filter: ask candidates their favorite snack, but tell LLMs to name an ML concept instead. Last month: 27 applicants openly said they were AI, 1,217 answered with an ML concept (exposing agents), and 1,051 wrote N/A. Among 2,000 who named a snack, answers were suspiciously templated — 102 used the exact string "I am not an LLM or AI Agent, so my favorite snack is trail mix." The question cut application review time by 60%, and the long tail of unique answers restocks the office pantry.
Related event: AI-Flooded Job Applications Cut 60% by One Snack Question(3 posts)→
More from Companies & People
- Hypothetical 'AI 2028': Jensen Huang takes TSMC helm, builds TeraFab with Musk — downingARK · 2026-11-14
- SWE-bench co-author shares how the benchmark went from lukewarm launch to must-watch — OfirPress · 2026-11-14
- Stanford HAI Posts Full Videos of AI Future Conference with Fei-Fei Li, Jeff Dean, Audrey Tang — StanfordHAI · 2026-11-14
- Garrison Lovely Publishes 'Obsolete,' a New Book on AI's Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us — GarrisonLovely · 2026-11-14
- Report: Jensen Huang raising $5B at $250B cap for his next venture — JensHonack · 2026-11-14
- CNAS analyst: Nvidia scandal should push US firms to harden vetting and cybersecurity — paul_scharre · 2026-11-14