In preparation for Thursday night’s Golden Boa Awards, mb.com tossed a few questions to the honorees, including design’s resident boa-wearer, Luke Hayman. Greg Lindsay asks Hayman “How’d You Reach The Design World’s Pinnacle?” although we can’t say that sounds like a very comfortable place to work.

Hayman doles out advice and tells some great stories about his early days at mags from Brill’s Content to Cablevision, but our favorite part of the interview is where we learn the fraternity rush methods of choosing a new Pentagram partner:

How long had you been talking with Pentagram, and how does one start talking to Pentagram in the first place?

Joining Pentagram is a lengthy process. I’m in touch with a guy in London who has been talking to them for 11 years. For me, it was more like a year. You have to fly to each office and meet everyone, and have dinner with them. They’ve seen the work, they like the work, and they want to see how you present yourself, the work, and your philosophy, and basically see if they like having dinner with you.

It sounds like you were joining a secret society.

[Laughs] It really does, especially with the name ‘Pentagram.’ It’s the Wicca Society.

Ah, so that’s why Michael Bierut was running around without his pants. Hazing.