Oscar Mayer Just Revealed the Genius Question They Ask in Every Wienermobile Job Interview

Here are three facts about the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, plus the key question everyone who applies to drive it has to answer over and over and over: 

• First dreamed up in 1936, the Wienermobile today is a 27-foot-long, gas-powered truck shaped to look like a giant hot dog. Actually, it’s Wienermobiles, plural, since there are six of them traveling around the country, each driven by a team of two “hotdoggers,” as the company calls them. 
• Second, it’s all part of a giant (and highly popular) marketing and public relations effort. The Wienermobiles and their dozen “hotdogger” drivers spend an entire year on the road, doing 200 or more local events each. They’re paid about $35,600, but they also live basically for free on the road for the year.
• Finally, they’re hiring, and it turns out that a lot of people want this job! In fact, when I talked with the folks at Oscar Mayer this week, they said they’re on track to break their record for most applicants, which would mean more than 7,000 people applying this year for just 12 positions.

This whole thing is a fun story, but that last point really stood out to me. How do you select just a dozen people out of potentially 7,000 candidates for an unusual job like this?

I put the question to Oscar Mayer, and a big part of their answer is that they ask all of their “hotdogger” applicants one simple question, over and over and over.

That question is: “Why do you want to be a hotdogger?”

“We ask that exact same question, every step of the process,” explained Ed Roland, who has been running the program for more than 20 years. “‘Why do you want to be a hotdogger?’ is the last question you are asked in every single interview.” 

In fact, from start to finish, Roland explained, a successful “hotdogger” candidate who gets all the way to the end and gets an offer can expect to be asked the question 10 times or more.

Why? Well, most applicants for the one-year, June-to-June “hotdogger” jobs are college seniors majoring in marketing and journalism, and many of them could likely do the job in theory.

But the most important requirement for success is simiple, sincere enthusiasm–the kind of enthusiasm that continues months into the job, after the novelty of living out of hotels, doing event after event, and moving to a new place every 7 days or so begins to wear off.

“You’ve got to have a passion,” Roland continued. “Think about it, if you don’t have a passion for this program, being happy every day is not always easy — especially when you’re dealing with the public. They’re the face of our brand, and we need to know that you have a passion for Oscar Mayer, the Wienermobile, and people. And we want to hear that. … It can be a taxing job. I mean, like I said: over 200 events a year.”

Now, I know there’s an easy opportunity here to overthink this question. 

But, longtime readers might notice that this is almost the exact same open-ended, soul-searching king question that I’ve previoulsy reported Chick-fil-A uses as it combs through literally thousands of applications for every opportunity to own a single franchise:

Speficially: “Why do you want to own and operate a Chick-fil-A franchise?”

Imagine how much happier and more satisfied some people might be, if before making big decisions or commitments, their friends or colleagues helpfully pushed them to articulate why they wanted to pursue whatever their plans might be: 

• “Why do you want to drive the Wienermobile?”
• “Why do you want to own and operate a Chick-fil-A?”
• “Why do you really want to marry this person?”
• “Why do you want to borrow money to study this subject in college?”
• “Why do you want to move across the country and take this job?”

If you can’t articulate “why” with persuasive enthusiasm as well as you might have hoped, wouldn’t it be better to find out that out beforehand?

So, make a practice of asking yourself why as much as possible–and ask potential employees to articulate it as well. 

Oh, and if after hearing all of this you think you might know someone who would actually make a really good “hotdogger” driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, here’s the link to apply. They have until the end of January. 

The extended deadline for the 2025 Inc. Best in Business Awards is this Friday, September 19, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.