I was just looking back fondly on the best meal I’ve ever eaten while being in serious contention for a job. They took me out to a seafood restaurant in Baton Rouge, LA where I had crawfish for the first time. Fantastic! I was later offered the job and turned it down (which in retrospect seems wise). Elsewhere on the job interview trail I’ve been “treated” to everything from an inexpensive sandwich to a really good steak dinner. Mrs. J. last night was reminiscing about her interview for a university position, during which her putative boss took her to the campus grill and suggested she get the $1 breakfast special (this might have been a hint about what salary and benefit package she was liable to wind up with…she accepted the position anyway).
Do any really good/bad job interview meals stick out in your mind? Did they influence you in taking/rejecting a job?
Best - Japanese Noodle house in Abu Dhabi with unlimited free drinks. The same guys also paid for my airfare from the US to Abu Dhabi, riding in the front of the plane. I nailed that interview!
Worst - not a job interview, but a celebratory meal at the end of a week long training course. Subway. And we had to split 12" subs.
As a consultant, the list of job interviews I’ve been on in my 25+ year career is longer than my arm. Not ONE has ever been conducted over a meal. I find it strange that either party would want to do so. <shrug>
I’ve had very few job interviews, but the most I’ve had was the offer of coffee. I’d be really nervous about actually eating at an interview since, try as I may, I inevitably end up spilling something on my shirt. I swear, I know how to feed myself, but it’s as if I attract grease or sauce to my bodice.
I’ve been taken to a couple of 5 star restaurants. That was nice. Smoked pheasant soup, Beef Wellington, yum! That was for jobs that didn’t particularly work out for me.
I’ve also been given a coupon for Subway, and told I could use it to drive thru and get a sandwich on my journey home after an interview. That’s for the job I have now, and have had for about 13 years. It’s the one that’s worked out best, both for lifestyle, intellectual challenge, and remuneration. Go figure.
It’s pretty common in higher education, particularly for faculty and administration positions. I had a couple of fantastic meals when I interviewed at the University of Houston - one was at their on-campus restaurant/hotel run by their Hospitality Management program.
The dinner for my current job was good, but in large part because the click with the people in attendance was so strong. I left the meal looking forward to the next day’s (day-long) interview and hoping that it went as well. It clearly did.
I’ve only seen it in University positions, sales, and executive positions.
Why it’s so common at Universities I can only wonder (maybe they’re selling you on the place because your probably going to have to move there?), but for sales and executive positions one of the important qualifying requirements is dealing with people on a personal level.
I’ve never been in any one of those but got to tag along on all three at
one time or another.
Hell, all my grad school interviews had multiple meals (dinner the night I arrived, breakfast the next morning and lunch midday). I was introduced to Korean food and a great steak at a nice steak house once. As a poor undergrad it was quite a treat!
I’ve had lunch and dinner at faculty interviews. They’re generally all day, if not multiple day, interviews.
Not me, but a friend. She was served underdone chicken and had to choose between eating it or appearing to be fussy over the food.
She ate it, but I think she sustained permanent psychological damage from the experience.
Your friend missed a golden opportunity to show off her skills in dealing with situations like that. I rarely send anything back but uncooked chicked I would not hesitate regardless of who was watching.
For the department I run, there are generally going to be 2 meals involved: dinner the night before and lunch the day of. The interview days are generally 9AMish to 4Pish, so the candidate is going to need to eat at some point in there. For the dinner, we generally do national searches and often have candidates who fly in the day before. They’re in a city where they may or may not know what’s nearby.
They’re a time to get a feel for how the candidate will fit with the department and the unit as a whole. It’s also a less formal time for them to ask questions about the city, about the unit, about the department. It is part of the interview, and candidates are told that in advance. My unit isn’t tenure track, but we are faculty, and searches for tenure track faculty are similar to us with meals.
Also, when we take candidates out, we pay for everything. I’ve heard of places where this is done differently during the interview and that just seems odd to me.