Maybe Don't Bring Your Iced Coffee to a Job Interview
In an era when everyone totes water bottles from the gym, to breakfast meetings, to the office, and then to dinner, the lines of personal beverage etiquette have blurred.
“this interview is just like a stop on your list of errands for the day.”
Is it rude to bring your own alt-milk to a coffee shop? (Eh.) Should you bring a batched cocktail to a funeral? (Depends on the funeral.) Can you smuggle in an entire liter of Diet Coke into a 10 a.m. showing of Practical Magic 2? (Yes, but is everything going okay at home?)
This week’s topic of debate: Is it ok to bring an iced coffee to a job interview?
The discourse wildfire was first sparked by a TikTok post from Caitlin Wehniainen, a recruiter “with 16 years of experience” who “deals with mostly Fortune 500, super buttoned up operations,” as she describes it. She argues that the Gen Z candidates she sees arriving at job interviews with iced coffee in hand appear unprofessional.
“When you show up with an iced coffee or an iced latte,” Wehniainen says in the video, it makes it look like “this interview is just like a stop on your list of errands for the day.” It looks too casual, and it makes a bad impression.
The comments popped off, as they say. “An interview is just a stop on my day,” some commenters argued. Others bemoaned what they perceived as the outdated and unfair rules of perception and professionalism. One commenter (on Threads of all places) called the idea “ableist,” pointing to some health conditions that can cause dehydration.
A career coach Erin McGoff explained in an email, bringing an iced coffee to an interview might be a red flag for some recruiters, while others might not give it a second thought.
Is there some other beverage that might be more interview-appropriate? A shakerato or perhaps a frosty iced horchata latte? McGoff says there’s not a drink in the world that you should need to bring to into an interview—though if you simply can’t resist, she says, bring your drink in a low-key container like a sleek, black Yeti thermos, rather than a jangly, single-use plastic take out cup.
In the end, she says, it’s less about the coffee, and more about the image you’re projecting to future employers.
“People aren't debating coffee, they're debating the unspoken dynamic we accept between candidates and employers,” McGoff says. “Do these secret rules exist? Yes. If you don't know them, do you get penalized? Also yes. Is that fair? Nope.”