Jonah turned in his apartment key at his flagship state college this week. He’ll be living here, probably for the next year, as he simultaneously finishes his last couple of classes in his minor and joins the workforce. I have no idea how he’s going to do all that, while traveling to south Jersey to visit his girlfriend, but he’ll figure it out.
This summer, he polished off one more class and started the job search. The first step was crafting a better resume. Because of COVID, his resume is a little weird — online internships and restaurant gigs — but he did work a lot, so there’s stuff to put on paper. One of the big difference between Jonah’s state college and his friends’ $85,000 colleges is that the fancy places hand out some really good internships that then morph into real jobs, so the kids never really have to job hunt.
A while back, I interviewed an expert on college and work, who said that college career centers, in general, are terrible. They’re understaffed and unhelpful. When we went on college tours with Jonah, the tour guides bragged about those centers; sometimes the tours even began outside the shiny new offices for career development. Turned out, those places are all for show, unless you go to private college or are in specialized programs at the state colleges.
Unlike some of his classmates at his state college, Jonah has a built-in career center in our home and community. Jonah, Steve, and I revamped his resume. Then we talked with a friend of ours, who is the head of HR at a huge insurance company, who told us that the resumes now have to be search engine friendly.
Because people apply for hundreds of jobs with a click of button on Indeed and other job sites, companies use bots to filter down the hundreds of applications. To get past the bots, job applicants have to add a goals section on the top of the resume and stock it up with key words and phrases. If you can drop in keywords from the job ad, that’s even better.
A couple of weeks ago, we went for a post-dinner walk together and started chatting with a neighbor, who is the head of sales and marketing at one of a massive technology corporate headquarters just a few miles from here. He said that after Jonah gets a little more lower level experience and finishes the degree, he’ll set him up.
He had his first interview last Friday with a solar energy company. Afterwards, we debriefed him. Steve and I agreed that he did well, but we disagreed about one thing.
When Jonah walked into the office, after the initial greetings and hellos, the interviewer asked Jonah if he wanted a cup of coffee. Jonah said yes, because he was thirsty. The guy poured him one and they started the interview. Good move or not? What do you think? Should Jonah have said no?
Apt. 11d 
I used to teach resume writing as part of a graduate technical writing course for engineers. I found the website at Virginia Tech very helpful in terms of advice: https://career.vt.edu/job-search/presenting_yourself/resumes.html
Our daughter, who has a BS in geology and is working full time for an environmental remediation firm here in St Louis, used resources from Tech as well as much help from our own community college career office–once the folks there worked over her resume, specifically optimizing it for sites like Indeed and LinkedIn, she gets at least an interview a month. I should mention Emilie has epilepsy and took 12 years to get through her degree, but she does not mention her disability (ies). One thing to consider is that perhaps the first job is just that, the first job, and that it’s easier to get a job when you already have one. Best wishes to you all.
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“Should Jonah have said no? [to coffee]”
This is one of the kinds of things I’ve stopped trying to give advice on. Why? ’cause I’ve decided my instincts are just as likely to be wrong as right.
The other day I was lecturing kiddo about something like this, and I asked him if I should just stop giving advice completely, and was told no. But, we did discuss the ways in which my advice can be wrong 1) when I don’t understand him 2) when I don’t understand the environment (I’m often wrong about teenagers) 3) and when I have goals that are different from his. 4) when my voice in his head might interfere with making decisions
All were illustrated in the meatball incident of 2022. We’d been discussing whether the kids who were gathering for the prom at our house should get dressed before the food. I strongly advised kiddo that they should and he did put on his suit before dinner (even though he disagreed with me). Moments after everyone arrived, another kid picked up a meatball and it popped out of his hands, hitting my son on his shirt (all was well, he was able to wash it out). So, I was wrong and he was right. Where did go wrong? I overestimated 18yo and their ability to avoid accidentally flinging meatballs and 2) wanting so much to take photos while they were dressed up that I let that goal of mine lead me astray.
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bj said, “The other day I was lecturing kiddo about something like this, and I asked him if I should just stop giving advice completely, and was told no. But, we did discuss the ways in which my advice can be wrong 1) when I don’t understand him 2) when I don’t understand the environment (I’m often wrong about teenagers) 3) and when I have goals that are different from his. 4) when my voice in his head might interfere with making decisions.”
This is very relatable!
I also need to work on overprepping kids (cause you don’t want to accidentally psych them out), but I think they appreciate a little bit of prep for novel situations.
A little goes a long way, though!
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“One thing to consider is that perhaps the first job is just that, the first job, and that it’s easier to get a job when you already have one.”
Really agree with this, especially in a fast moving job market and in jobs where people move around. Though, of course, I know nothing, since the same thing is not true for graduate programs, labs, post-docs, and tenure track positions (i.e. they are very slow moving and hard to change).
But, someone did offer the advice on graduate labs that you should pick a group and person you will like working with and not try to chose the perfect or most exciting project, since projects can change (especially when you are done), but toxic labs make everything horrible.
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When Jonah walked into the office, after the initial greetings and hellos, the interviewer asked Jonah if he wanted a cup of coffee. Jonah said yes, because he was thirsty. The guy poured him one and they started the interview. Good move or not? What do you think? Should Jonah have said no?
It almost certainly didn’t matter. Not everything in a job interview is a trap or a move in some eight dimensional chess game.
When I interview someone and offer a cup of coffee or some other pleasantry I am actually offering a cup of coffee. The only way to fail this test is to not act like a normal human being and politely accepting or declining the coffee is usually within the normal range of human behavior.
And yet.
There is one caveat. I have only interviewed people for STEM jobs, where we are evaluating people against whether they are normal humans, sure, but also mostly against a specific set of hard skills and experience. Perhaps for these soft skill jobs they have to set traps to differentiate between otherwise identical candidates. But I doubt it. I think a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.
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I asked the coffee question to a bunch of people this weekend. Dudes all said yes to coffee. Women all said no.
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I asked the coffee question to a bunch of people this weekend. Dudes all said yes to coffee. Women all said no.
No is fine. No is a perfectly normal answer, which I might have given if I didn’t want coffee.
I’m speaking from my experience as an interviewer. I would not even remember whether someone took coffee 10 minutes after the interview. It definitely would not make it into my report or recommendation. The only way this would stand out is if the applicant gave some batshit crazy response, such as how Ted Lasso responds to being offered tea or something.
Like I said, I interview STEM candidates. Do you actually think we (or anyone) would pass on a qualified candidate because they failed the coffee test? Is this some indicator that the person is lacking interpersonal skills that would make them a poor colleague? This was not a trap question. And if you think it was, what was the trap? What was the interviewer trying to gauge that an applicant wouldn’t measure up on.
You really can overthink these things. If a job depends on this then the applicant already doesn’t have the job.
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Agreed. It’s good to get this input. I do think women overthink these little things.
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And, when we moms advise people who aren’t overthinking (because sometimes we think they don’t think enough) we interfere with their ability to just say yes or no, both reasonable responses.
But, I still feel a need to remind my young adult that he shouldn’t order spaghetti bolognese at a lunch meeting. Will do that when I next see him :-).
Also, not, when offered a coffee, “yes please, a soy milk latte with light foam”.
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Ok, fine. When I offer something, it’s “would you like something to drink? We have coffee, tea or water.” *gestures at machine*. If someone said “I’ll have a half car soy latte”, I would gesture again and say, these are your choices, and THAT I’d remember. But yes or no? DOESN’T MATTER.
We have machines with cups, or you can get hot water and a tea bag, or we have water cooler.
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I agree. The only right answer to the offer of coffee is what did Jonah want. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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“One of the big difference between Jonah’s state college and his friends’ $85,000 colleges is that the fancy places hand out some really good internships that then morph into real jobs, so the kids never really have to job hunt.”
Also, I want to hear how this works, for real. I am not unfamiliar with fancy colleges, but are there still really firms that advertise only at the fancy colleges and then hand out jobs to people who just went there? Are these the same fancy colleges that get you a UK work permit? (though those include flagship state universities).
I do not like tracks, they distort both the track (i.e. Exeter, Harvard, Stanford . . .) and the destination (CEO, Supreme court, Google . . .).
But, maybe I take for granted what is available at fancy colleges (or the ones I know aren’t fancy enough even if they cost 80K) and thus don’t know fancy college privilege.
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I am frequently involved in interviewing candidates. I always offer something to drink. Whether or not they accept has never been a factor. It doesn’t matter. At all.
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Accept something if offered. DO NOT make a fuss about how you hate creamer, or skim milk won’t do, or do they have herbal tea….
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I’d say that’s fine if you’re visiting someone’s home, but a job interview is different. You could ask for water, instead of coffee, I suppose.
But you aren’t required to accept anything to drink. If anything, it saves the person who offered the beverage some trouble.
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If someplace is using offering coffee as some kind of gotcha, then you don’t want to work there anyway, because that’s a terrible practice and they are likely awful in other ways as well.
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Off topic ( a little) but I spotted this article this morning and thought you would be interested. Also haven’t yet read it so I can’t vouch for it. It’s a Microsoft article on a Neurodiversity Career Connector platform
https://ndcc.simplifyhire.com/
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Thanks, selfanalyst. Google also has a nice program for people on the spectrum. This is definitely where Ian is heading. He’s going to get two years of support to work directly on social skills and controlling his OCD tics (minor, but persistent and annoying), while learning programming at a community college. I’m hoping that he’ll be ready for a work program like this in the future. He’s hitting his community college classes out of the ballpark with no help from me.
Tangent: I stumbled across Ian’s YouTube channel yesterday. He likes to remix old video game music and turn them into his own composition. Some of his music has 40,000 views and thousands of comments. I would share, but he likes to keep all that private. He didn’t even want us to see it for some reason.
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Google also has a nice program for people on the spectrum.
I find the Google and Microsoft programs interesting. As far as I can tell they are designed to smooth out or sidestep the admin and social hurdles that make it hard for ND people to make it through the hiring process and navigate day to day work.
Of course, you still need to actually land the Google job and from what I can see they aren’t relaxing on that part. As a percentage of applicants interviewed and offered a position, Google is more selective than Harvard. The ultimate reason for their program is that they want to strip-mine every possible location for talent and relying on traditional interviews gets in their way of that, as opposed to a sense of altruism towards the ND community.
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Some of his music has 40,000 views and thousands of comments. t
Isn’t that in the region that can be monetized?
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“The ultimate reason for their program is that they want to strip-mine every possible location for talent and relying on traditional interviews gets in their way of that, as opposed to a sense of altruism towards the ND community.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if “strip-mining” talent everywhere means giving opportunity to people who can do the job but are facing irrelevant barriers (like whether they know how to say yes or no to coffee). But, it does raise the question of what accommodations will be offered. I’m guessing, accommodations that don’t interfere with the productivity they are looking for and the hope that they’ll get the person at a discount once they’ve found them. I’ve looked at Microsoft’s requirements in their programs and they struck me as very high, which fits with the notion of mining talent.
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Yes, those programs target autistic people, who are typical enough to go to MIT or RIT. That’s a very, very small percentage of people with autism. Yes, there are definitely people with autism in the tech fields at those schools. I know some of them. But their issues are relatively mild and their programming skills are very high caliber. I hope that Ian will get to that spot at some time, but right now he has inexplicable panic attacks when someone sings out of tune.
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The real challenge is finding work for people whose issues are a step more complicated than a google programmer. Right now, there’s nothing.
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re: the coffee question
My instinct would have been to say no to the coffee, because I wouldn’t want to trouble the interviewer. I wouldn’t even want that person to subconsciously be annoyed at doing this task for me.
My girl friends also said no, but they were more worried about a potential spillage faux pas.
My BIL, who is the director of a big architecture company, was emphatic that taking the coffee was a good idea. It establishes an more informal atmosphere, especially if the interviewer was going to have one, too. He pointed out that an interview is a two-way street; the interviewer should be trying to impress you, too.
Another girlfriend said no, if the boss was going to have the secretary make the coffee, because you don’t want the secretary to be annoyed with you.
Steve was like yes, of course, but didn’t have any reasons why.
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I don’t understand this at all. This reasoning comes across as a woman making herself small., can’t be a bother, not even by accepting a cup of coffee. Stop it! Stop teaching your daughters that!
But also, if just accepting a cup of coffee annoys someone (someone who offered coffee), do you want to work with them?
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Yes, you are absolutely right. I am still traumatized from years of semi-abusive job situations in the past, so I’ve lost perspective about what healthy employment looks like.
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This explains part of why this is off to me. It comes across as not understanding hiring from the employers perspective. The employer needs someone to perform work. They went through applications and decided they like X. They invite X to an interview – which costs money. They want to find out if X fits and if so, they want X to like them back. Offering coffee isn’t a test. It’s trying to set X at ease so X does well and hopefully accepts an offer so the employer can stop interviewing
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“Stop it! Stop teaching your daughters that!”
Yes! I was just listening to a Kelly Corrigan podcast about a woman who went back to school to get her PhD in counseling (and, aside from whether that was a worthwhile investment), I was struck, constantly, by the need to justify every decision on value to someone else and the low self esteem.
I used to wonder why so much marketing rhetoric is directed at telling women their needs matter, too (even only when saying “put your oxygen mask on first so you can help others). I understanding now that the world has shaped women in ways I didn’t understand. But, yes, resist! be as big as you want to be.
(I hope I’ve taught my daughter that, and do suspect that taking space myself is probably the best way to teach it)
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Laura said, “My girl friends also said no, but they were more worried about a potential spillage faux pas.”
That would be my only concern.
*getting a little PTSD from bj’s meatball story*
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But it gives you something to do with your hands.
The debate on overthinking is interesting. I agree this is a thing women do to themselves and each other. I gave up reading women’s magazines years ago, but there are still articles on the web from such publications, which include really doubtful advice about office wear.
There’s the old saw about inviting applicants to eat a meal. If you season your food without tasting it, you’re too hasty. If you taste it before seasoning it, you’re indecisive. In other words, it’s not worth the time to worry about it.
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My girl friends also said no, but they were more worried about a potential spillage faux pas.
This is a legit reason but this isn’t a “the interviewer is testing me” thing. When I was applying for anything I was always careful about what I ordered for lunch because I didn’t want to make a mess. But I’m clumsy so to thy own self be true. This isn’t something I would say was a rule for everyone.
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My instinct would have been to say no to the coffee, because I wouldn’t want to trouble the interviewer…My girl friends also said no, but they were more worried about a potential spillage faux pas…My BIL, who is the director of a big architecture company, was emphatic that taking the coffee was a good idea…Another girlfriend said no, if the boss was going to have the secretary make the coffee…Steve was like yes, of course but didn’t have any reasons why.
For the love of all that’s holy, stop thinking about it and encouraging people to think of these things in interviews. *It just doesn’t matter.*
There is no reason you should accept the coffee. There is no reason you shouldn’t accept the coffee. The only thing that you need to do is behave like a normal civilized human being and both choices can fall into the range of this behavior. Worrying about “should I do this or that” to optimize the course of the interview takes your eyes off this big picture.
This isn’t to say that we don’t have our own dog and pony show. When I interview I am very focused on how you solve problems I present, your coding skills, whether you have a good story about that C in linear algebra or if you just blame it on the foreign accent or teaching style of the professor instead, what you actually did in your summer research position, etc.
But looking for subtle clues based on whether someone accepts a drink? Like Tulip said, there is too much time and money at stake to spend one second worrying about such inanity.
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I kind of want to hear J’s advice about how to interview at a restaurant — a job I interviewed for after high school and did not get a call back for. I think it was because I had no experience and was applying for a restaurant where I would have had to have experience first (not a high end place, but they might have expected a fast food or other service job first). But, maybe I said the wrong things, too.
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I once interviewed at an Einstein’s Bagels and didn’t get the job.
That Einstein’s Bagels went under not too long after that. Coincidence?
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Coincidence? NO! Divine Retribution! Did the owner’s first-born break out in pustulent boils, too???
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Hee!
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I hired someone for a paid internship at a tech company whose sole work experience was working in a restaurant – during the pandemic. Honestly, I thought this showed terrific initiative and was a real differentiator. He was fantastic – great work ethic, was collegial, collaborative, picked up on cues, showed up every day, asked questions, wasn’t flummoxed by feedback. We made him an offer when he graduated and he works with us now!
Those people with fancy (unpaid) experiences in esoteric fields just show me they don’t really need to work. And I’m not alone – my friend is head of HR at a large employer and she said she prefers entry level candidates who actually have experience dealing with members of the public.
Tell Jonah to look into getting hired by a temp agency like Manpower – half the people I know who were at loose ends after college did this and ended up with job offers at the companies they temped at.
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Also – yes to coffee, water, tea – it’s starting up a conversation
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Also – yes to coffee, water, tea – it’s starting up a conversation
No. Nonsense.
I’ve never had any meaningful conversation with an interviewee because they accepted an offer of refreshment. Or because they refused an offer of refreshment.
You have meaningful connection when you act like a normal human being, which means you accept an offered drink if you want it and refuse it if you don’t.
Please. Stop setting stupid arbitrary rules about how to act in a job interview that actually have nothing to do with the interview. Stop overthinking things that don’t need to be thought, let alone overthought. Apply some common sense.
I realize the need to try to assert some control in a situation that seems random. But if you are being interviewed for a job there are only two things you need to do:
1. Act like a normal person.
2. Have the correct answers to address what the interviewer really thinks is meaningful.
Worrying about whether you should accept a cup of coffee (a) works in opposition to (1) and (b) does not meaningfully address (2).
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Jay wrote:
“1. Act like a normal person.
2. Have the correct answers to address what the interviewer really thinks is meaningful.
Worrying about whether you should accept a cup of coffee (a) works in opposition to (1) and (b) does not meaningfully address (2).”
If so many people (primarily women) were worried about the drink question–doesn’t that suggest that it’s a normal response?
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Amy, Laura says most said no because they were worried about spilling, not because of angst over ‘coffee is a test’. So no, it’s not a normal response.
Again, companies want to hire -that’s why they are doing interviews. Gotcha questions aren’t really a thing unless the company is extremely dysfunctional. In which case, DON’T WORK THERE. Be glad they let you know.
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Cool. Thanks!
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@jay – if you want to say no, that’s okay. It’s not a game. If the interviewer is offering you coffee/water, it’s an attempt to be a normal person. I would say yes because I like coffee. But no is fine too.
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More on interview advice. Looking online, there are many opinions. I think it may reflect different regions of the country.
For example, what about alcohol? My gut feeling would be, at lunch, if wine/beer is offered, don’t order it. At dinner, maybe, one glass (not more), if you are a wine/beer drinker who won’t be negatively affected by one glass. But looking online, this seems to be HIGHLY regional.
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RE: coffee question. I don’t think that the offer of a beverage is more than just that; to be kind to the interviewee. I think it’s still important how you answer. Keeping it simple: Yes, No thank you, and maybe a small request like no milk, or just water please, are all fine. But if you treat it like you’re ordering your custom drink at the local coffeehouse, that’s quite revealing.
I would personally say no to coffee not because I’m afraid I’d spill, but that it would make me feel jittery during the interview process. But I would request or say yes to water because it’s helpful to quench a dry mouth from nervousness, or after talking a lot.
(if you’re keeping track of demographics for this question, I am female, married, in my early 50s)
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