{"id":7073402,"date":"2026-10-02T21:38:36","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7073402"},"modified":"2026-10-02T21:38:36","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:38:36","slug":"would-an-iced-coffee-make-you-judge-a-job-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7073402","title":{"rendered":"Would an Iced Coffee Make You Judge a Job Candidate?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

It started with a TikTok.<\/p>\n

US recruiter Caitlin Wehniainen, who has 16 years\u2019 experience and works predominantly with large, traditional Fortune 500 organisations, posted about something she\u2019d noticed: Gen Z candidates arriving at job interviews carrying an iced coffee or iced latte.<\/p>\n

Her view was that it could make the interview appear too casual, as though it were simply another stop in a candidate\u2019s day.<\/p>\n

The internet had thoughts.<\/p>\n

The debate quickly spread beyond TikTok and has since been picked up by major business media.<\/p>\n

It caught my attention for a slightly different reason. I\u2019m in my 50\u2019s and I regularly walk around with an iced latte or iced long black. So I\u2019m not convinced we can put this one down to Gen Z.<\/p>\n

But underneath what seems like a fairly trivial debate about coffee is a much more interesting leadership question.<\/p>\n

How many of our ideas about professionalism are actually measures of capability, and how many are simply conventions we\u2019ve become used to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to plenty of meetings and interviews over the years where I haven\u2019t been offered a glass of water, let alone a coffee.<\/p>\n

So if someone grabs a coffee on the way and brings it into the interview, what exactly are we deciding that tells us about them?<\/p>\n

That they\u2019re too casual?<\/p>\n

That they haven\u2019t prepared?<\/p>\n

That they don\u2019t care enough about the opportunity?<\/p>\n

Or are we attaching meaning to something that may have no meaning at all?<\/p>\n

There are behaviours that absolutely matter in an interview.<\/p>\n

Preparation matters. Being on time matters. Respect matters. Being engaged and present matters. Understanding the environment you\u2019re walking into matters.<\/p>\n

But drinking an iced coffee?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that tells us very much about whether someone can actually do the job.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s another side to this conversation that I think is being overlooked.<\/p>\n

An interview works both ways.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While an organisation is forming an impression of the candidate, the candidate is forming an impression of the organisation.<\/p>\n

How were they greeted? Were they made to feel welcome? Was the interviewer prepared? Did the meeting start on time? Were they offered something as simple as a glass of water?<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re going to scrutinise the small signals candidates send us, perhaps we should be equally conscious of the signals we\u2019re sending them.<\/p>\n

This goes well beyond recruitment.<\/p>\n

Leaders make judgements every day about what someone should wear, how they should communicate, what ambition should look like, how committed people should appear and what constitutes \u201cprofessional\u201d behaviour.<\/p>\n

Some of those expectations exist for good reason. Others may simply be inherited rules we\u2019ve never thought to question.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the part of the iced coffee debate that interests me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to confuse\u00a0\u201cthat\u2019s not how I would do it\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0with\u00a0\u201cthat\u2019s not professional.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019re not necessarily the same thing.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the better question for leaders is this:<\/p>\n

Are we assessing what genuinely matters, or are we assessing how closely someone conforms to our version of what professional looks like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are your thoughts? Would someone bringing an iced coffee into an interview influence your first impression of them?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be over here with my iced latte!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started with a TikTok. US recruiter Caitlin Wehniainen, who has 16 years\u2019 experience and works predominantly with large, traditional Fortune 500 organisations, posted about something she\u2019d noticed: Gen Z candidates arriving at job interviews carrying an iced coffee or iced latte. Her view was that it could make the interview appear too casual, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7073403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97858],"tags":[23910,5233,2032,3690,21177],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7073402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-candidate","tag-coffee","tag-iced","tag-job","tag-judge"],"yoast_head":"\nWould an Iced Coffee Make You Judge a Job Candidate? - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7073402\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Would an Iced Coffee Make You Judge a Job Candidate? - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It started with a TikTok. 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