Iced Coffee Iced the Interview

A recruiter from Florida has sparked the online debate of the year about…iced coffee. The New York Times reported that Caitlin Wehniainen, the president of a recruitment agency in Florida, posted a video on TikTok sharing what she thought was a “helpful, innocuous tip for job seekers.”

The NYT article says, “Based on her observations while training young candidates, she urged Gen Z candidates not to turn up to interviews with an iced coffee in hand, because it could send the wrong message: that it’s just a ‘stop on your list of errands for the day,’ she said. Wehniainen didn’t think much of the video and posted it in between calls with clients.”

The Internet had opinions.

Hard agreements, hard pushback, and lots of postings about other faux pas during an interview. Predictably, the issue broke along generational lines. Older workers thought it was disrespectful, while Gen Z chimed in with “What’s the big deal?”

“Would you bring iced coffee to a funeral?” was one of the sterner responses.

Interview etiquette is becoming more relaxed, but I am firmly in the “no iced coffee” camp. I have three objections:

• Iced coffee, in particular, leaves condensation rings on furniture and rattles when you swirl it or raise it to drink. If you carry it in in your right hand, your hand will be cold and wet when you shake hands. Yuck.
• You’ve created your own piece of trash that must be dealt with after the interview. “Where can I toss this?” “The trash bin is right here. Just throw it in on top of your resume.”
• It’s one small step away from bringing your Egg McMuffin to the meeting and answering questions between bites and napkin dabs.

But Gen Z is not going down on this key issue without a fight. Writing for The Guardian online, columnist Tayo Bero says, “Sorry – I’m bringing my iced coffee to the interview.”  She writes, “Recruiters say you shouldn’t bring iced coffee to interviews, while young people are (rightly) asking: what’s the big deal? It’s one of those conversations that makes me cringe, given just how eagerly it springs up from the generational divide plaguing mainstream culture. And as usual, gen Z are cast as the entitled morons who want to live life with no rules or responsibilities, all to the detriment of the millennials and gen X-ers who have to deal with them.”

She says that rules of etiquette, both spoken and unspoken, are about control, and often rooted in racism. I don’t agree with her there; I believe social norms were developed to take unpredictability out of the interview process and other social settings (including funerals). When we all have at least the same broad guidelines (dress for the job, look professional and well groomed, be on your best company behavior, etc.), an interviewer can compare candidates more easily. In this way, candidates are like their resumes. There’s an accepted order for putting information on the page, and a recruiter wants to be able to find important facts easily. Outliers are dismissed more quickly.

Sure, iced coffee is a trivial issue. But, especially for young candidates, there’s not much differentiation in their years of experience (few) or education (new graduate.) It can come down to a knife’s edge judgment call. And the iced coffee ring left behind after your interview leaves the wrong message.

An employer wants to be reassured that you can focus on the important task at hand (in this case, making the case for value you’d be contributing to the team) without the need for an emotional support beverage. If your comfort and convenience appear more important than this interview, you’re sending a message about how you’ll approach tasks once you get the job.