What’s wrong with sandwiches? I’ve interviewed lots of people over lunch and I can’t ever remember caring what they ordered. I want them to be as relaxed as possible. Eating what they like is a good first step to getting there.
Missed this. This is not strictly correct. The proper way - at least in the U.K. - is to put some salt on the side of your dish. You then add salt to each item piece by piece by touching / scooping the knife to the salt and then to the morsel of food. This is also correct for mustard and similar condiments. Obviously, this does not work for soup.
That may be proper but is it common? I’ve never seen it done it the US.
Add salt to the side of your plate? Never in my life have I heard of such a thing, and I’m originally from the U.K.
Order something in the middle price range that is easy to eat without being messy. End of story.
ETA: And for God’s sake, use every table manner in your arsenal.
Interviews are all about making your best impression. Any food that you have to pick up with your hands and take a bite out of can be troublesome. It’s very easy for some of the condiments to end up on your hands or face, some of the sandwich may fall out on the way to your mouth, etc. Plus, it’s not the most pleasing image to look at.
The safest best is to find a food that is easily eaten as bite-sized pieces (either comes that way or you cut it) and use your fork. Meats are usually a good choice. In an Italian restaurant, ravioli is much better than spaghetti. For Mexican, burrito or enchilada. If a guy, never order anything feminine sounding (salads, lite choices, etc). If you’re a vegetarian, order a dish that doesn’t mention it’s vegetarian (e.g. don’t order the veggie burger).
There’s a small chance that a non-standard meal choice will impress the intervierwer, but it’s not worth the risk. Just get something normal that can be eaten without making a mess. You want your food choice to be a non-issue to the interview.
And then there are those who know that this particular restaurant never adds enough salt for me.
I like my food much saltier than other people do. There’s also a trend towards unsalted food in restaurants these days, while they pile on the black pepper to make up for this. It’s very, very rare that a dish is salty enough for me as it comes out of the kitchen. It’s even rarer that the food is too salty. However, it’s quite likely that I won’t be able to eat something because it’s pre-peppered, even if I tell the server that I cannot eat pepper.
I had two meal-based interviews about four years ago and barely ate a thing either time because I was so busy answering questions from several people at a time. I believe it was a steak the first time and chicken parmesan the second.
Got offered the job so I guess I did something right. Declined, though. Not due to the meals.
Why can’t guys order salad for lunch? Saying he shouldn’t order salad sounds odd to me. It would be my first recommendation.
How odd. I suppose dipping the first piece in the salt without tasting it would fail a person also. Not to mention him getting arrested for being a British spy. 
I have not noticed any English people doing this, and I’ll check with my daughter whose best friend in Germany is British. None may be proper, though.
I ordered a tuna salad sandwich at an interview once. On toast. I think it did a triple flip between my mouth and the plate. I got the job, though.
I admit to never having been an interviewer before, but i literally cannot imagine a person’s lunch choice having any effect whatsoever on any hiring decision i might make. If he picked the most expensive thing on the menu, i might raise an eyebrow and wonder a little about his tact and prudence, but the actual type of food itself would be completely irrelevant.
The idea that some food is too feminine or whatever would not even cross my mind, nor would i expect the person to just have something light like a salad. If i ask someone to lunch, then i expect that they might want to eat. But if a salad’s all they want, that’s perfectly fine too.
Well, i’m a vegetarian, and if the candidate wanted to order a juicy, medium-rare sirloin, i wouldn’t have a single problem with it. More importantly, i think any vegetarian who would hold that choice against someone is an asshole who has no business conducting interviews. The idea that i would deny someone a job specifically because they don’t follow the same eating regimen as me is so far in left field i can’t imagine it.
The only possible exceptions i could think of is if the advertised position is something like “Staff writer for Vegetarian Times magazine,” or “PR director of PETA.” And in those cases, i doubt a non-vegetarian would apply for the job in the first place.
Well? How did his lunch interview go?
Very well. Sorry about the delay, my boyfriend has a little-used SDMB account of his own, so I asked him to pop into the thread personally and let you know how it went, but I guess he forgot.
Anyway, the interview last more than two hours, he met five people in the company, and they never did end up going to lunch! They are interviewing a couple other people, but most of this company’s employees are former employees of the company that laid my boyfriend off in December, so that gives him an in. They also told him that they’d talked to his former manager and received a glowing recommendation. They’ll probably decide in the next week or so who to hire.
The only thing that they seem a little wary of is his lack of experience: he’s trying to move from a support role at his old job into sales, and he hasn’t done much selling before. They’ve suggested having him work in a transitional role, doing some support (he’s an expert at the software they use), some new sales and some renewals so that they can find out whether he’s better at new sales or renewals and then move him into that position.
Thanks to everyone for your advice and support!
I would be inclined to discourage ordering a salad on the grounds of mesy-ness rather than anything else.
Then again, I’m female, and once ordered a salad at the lunch part of an interview because I decided that skipping one of the most appealing menu items on the grounds that it might be messy and hard to eat was a silly idea–given that most of the other menu items also sounded likely to be messy and hard to eat.
I didn’t get the job–but I don’t think my lunch choices were the reason.
And in Spain salads are usually brought completely unseasoned, with oil, vinegar and salt for you to do the seasoning. There’s no need to taste the lettuce beforehand.
I suspect your perspective on this is colored a little bit by the type of work you do, which is perfectly normal. When hiring for sales and consulting jobs (which have a significant relationship sales component) one thought going through the interviewer’s head is “how will this person’s eating habits play in front of clients?” Not ordering something messy or difficult to eat is a basic convention of business lunches. It’s a plus to get someone who groks that immediately. When you and the client are having a working or sales lunch, you will get more done if you are not also trying to enjoy the spaghetti, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, or cioppino.
Also, some interviews are conducted by the owner of a small company. Often someone in that situation really wants to surround themself with a core of people who share their values. Are you sure you can’t picture any vegetarians who would favor a fellow veg for their executive assistant? They might not explicitly say it was because they only want to hire vegetarians, but when it comes down to it, will say the person who ordered the salad just seemed like a better fit than the person with the rare steak (or, conversely, a he-man owner would not like to hire a right-hand man who ordered the quiche). Hiring someone to work for you in a company you own is a different dynamic from hiring someone to work for the large company or government agency where you are one of many managers/ interviewers.
Now, there may be something to be said for being yourself to not get hired where you won’t fit in, but in this economy I don’t blame applicants for figuring they’ll worry about that later.
Sam Adams and buffalo wings.
To quote The Dude, “Well, that’s, like, your opinion, man.” That’s great that you personally wouldn’t let it affect your choice. Unfortunately, the world is not made up of you. Some people have closed minds. Some close-minded people may work at that company. And some of those close-minded workers may be having lunch with you during the interview. Why take the chance?
Order a neutral meal – 1% chance of negatively affecting interview
Order a feminine/messy/exotic meal – A greater than 1% chance of negatively affecting the interview.
I’m just a worker-bee myself, and I like to think I have an open mind, but one time I nixed a guy because he ate with his mouth open. Eating has nothing to do with the job, but I was so disgusted by having to look into his mouth full of half-chewed food that it tainted my whole experience with him. So why take the risk of potentially offending the interviewer? Order something forgettable so that it’s not an issue.
First I’ve heard of this, for salt at least - maybe this used to be the proper way, but it can’t be at all common now - I’ve eaten in some pretty posh places, but never seen this.
Seen it with bread and butter (piece of butter on the side plate, tear off a small piece of bread, butter it individually and eat immediately) and yes, with mustard, a blob on the side of the plate, applied to forkfuls with the tip of the knife.
Anyone doing weird, uncommon stuff like that (even if it is somehow ‘proper’) is going to come across as quirky.
Interview food should be light, non-messy, uncomplicated, but I would order something I know I can enjoy, rather than something that mimics the interviewer’s choice - easier to answer honestly if asked why you chose it.