Dinner Interviews

System

Recently I read an article (can't remember where) about conducting final interviews over dinner. A qualified candidate was ruled out because when his food arrived, he salted everything on his plate without tasting it first. Another, because he began to eat before everyone else had been served.

What do you think? Do you really believe that a person's table manners indicate his/her business and professional etiquette?

Personally, I would never hire someone who pushes his food with his thumb.

LarryC

I tried this once and the dinner interview turned out to be a flaming disaster. The interviewee snorted throughout dinner, sneezed a martini right out of his glass into his face and returned from the restroom with his shirt tail protruding from his unzipped fly. I got so embarrassed I dropped a whole handful of mashed potatoes on the floor, kicked the waitress off my lap, and promptly left. NEVER AGAIN!!!

TN HR

Dinner interviews are very common in our industry for sales and marketing candidates. I don't know that I would do so for rank and file ee's. Personally I would be a little concerned if one of our female managers went to dinner with a candidate who we later find through criminal background check is into date rape.

Crout

So what if you would find that out? Would you bar all females from conducting dinner interviews with male candidates? It's just an interview, it's not a date.

dchr9203

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-16-05 AT 10:40AM (CST)[/font][br][br]I think they are important for management personnel and sales personnel; "not rank & file". If they cannot demonstrate common courtesy and respect for service staff during a dinner interview, then they sure won't be able to demonstrate it to subordinates, peers, or customers in day-to-day business interactions. Its a form of behavioral interviewing and more and more its important to not only find the candidate with the right technical skills, but one with the right personality traits as well to function in your organization.

Rockie

We do this with a team of people working in one of our hospitals. They interview in the hospital environment to assess technical skills, but then meet over dinner. It's amazing what a candidate will let drop over dinner that they would never talk about in a formal interview.

DeidreFR5

I had my first interview for an HR position over lunch. I was interviewing as the HR Assistant at one of our sister hotels. We met on a Saturday and the HR Direction suggested we start with lunch. I didn't realize that was the interview. When she didn't take me back to her office for a formal meeting, I thought she hated me. But I was hired the following Monday. Since I was going to be her assistant, personal interact meant a lot to her.

System

The analysis is what's important. If his steak is not done properly and he accepts it anyway, what does that mean in the professional world. If he corrects the wait staff, or talks with food in his mouth, what does that mean?

Do formal table manners still matter or have they become diminished or obscured over time?

safety

I was hired for my current position after a breakfast interview with the district manager. During the breakfast meeting I learned quite a few things/table traits about the manager such as, he pushed food with his fingers, smacked his lips when he ate, talked with food in his mouth, chewed his food with his mouth open, he was loud and boastful, held his utensils like a barbarian etc. I could go on but believe that is enough. Well, guess what, he’s gone and I’m still here. I have no idea why he was fired but doubt it had anything to do with his eating habits. I do believe there may be a correlation here Sam, sounds like a thesis in the works for some grad student.

globex

Manners, whether at the dinner table or in an elevator or in a car, matter. That is not to say that they are remembered, which they are not. Helping a lady with her chair, not beginning to eat before all are served, rising when a lady leaves or returns to the table show respect. I observed a male come to a table, sit down and start reading the menu, all before the women were seated. There are still some of us "oldies" that like to hold on to tradition, respect and manners. Unfortunately, it is a lost art.

POPEYE

>Recently I read an article (can't remember
>where) about conducting final interviews over
>dinner. A qualified candidate was ruled out
>because when his food arrived, he salted
>everything on his plate without tasting it
>first.

It is documented that Mr. James Cash Penney actually did make hiring decisions for his managers based on them tasting food before using salt and pepper. I guess it worked pretty well for him.

Don D

That's no doubt untrue; but, if true, signals that the man had a psychosis of his own.

Don D

Although I agree that some conclusions might be reached by watching a candidate behave while eating, it is frankly absurd for ordinary HR people without degrees in psychology and perhaps psychiatry to think they can analyze people based on how many peas they load on a fork, how high their cuff rises above the shoe when they are seated at a white tablecloth, which direction the candidate folds his napkin when finished or whether he pushes the candle away, perhaps signaling flatulence.

But I never cease to be amazed by those among us who think, actually think they have the inate ability to perform this stunt, totally untrained.

By the way, it is inappropriate to push your food around or load it onto a fork with anything, be it a thumb, a piece of bread or a napkin ring.

And if you would not hire someone who pushes his food with his thumb, don't ever interview anybody south of the Mason-Dixon line while eating fried chicken.

Crout

And if flatulence is an issue, I wouldn't order black beans and rice in Miami.

Don D

Yes, and I'm sure the medical questionnaire that accompanied the application had a checkoff for flatulence, right under back problems, in which case, the interviewer would know which restaurants were off limits. Obviously those with candles and refried beans would not make the list.

But, more importantly, who among you thinks it appropriate to load your fork up by pushing food with a roll? And if you do, would you find it acceptable for one to make little truck-noises while doing so?

Whatever

The real problem comes when you are interviewing someone whose culture believes that belching is a sign of approval.

System

Well, Donway, there's a time and a place for everything - even licking fingers. If I were to conduct an interview on a tailgate it would be appropriate to eat fried chicken, lick fingers, and exercise those manners associated with the great outdoors.

But for this purpose, we're at a formal dining table. It IS appropriate to push food with a cracker, biscuit, roll, or piece of bread to get the last peas, corn, or rice onto the fork. But never the thumb. I stand my ground.

x;-)

Don D

You won't find a cracker at a 'formal dining table', except perhaps in Elkton, where Applebees is the only five star facility within a hundred miles. And at Applebees, I'm sure you can do that and even make those little 'backhoe' noises while you use the front-end-loader. Vroom....uddunnnnn.

Crout

I guess it really depends on where you went to finishing school.

deniseE

My room-mate from college works in the publishing industry in NYC....this is how she was hired and how she does her final interviews.

She said that the first one or two was really difficult....but I guess there are rules to this game....you don't order anything with alcohol unless those from the company do so first. She says she's leery of drinking in this situation anyway....

But she does say that you can surmise a lot about a person in this environment...if they are supposed to be on their best behavior and yelling at the waitress...it's kind of a clue. It's hard to feel someone's personality in a meeting room, but lunch/dinner is more relaxed.

I agree with Don that we don't want to wander into the realm of being ametuer psychiatrists...

and...my family routinely picks on me because there is very little that I actually believe to be appropriate finger food. Just a pet peeve of mine...i will use a fork for french fries.

Rockie

>My room-mate from college works in the
>publishing industry in NYC....this is how she
>was hired and how she does her final interviews.
>
>She said that the first one or two was really
>difficult....but I guess there are rules to this
>game....you don't order anything with alcohol
>unless those from the company do so first. She
>says she's leery of drinking in this situation
>anyway....
>
>But she does say that you can surmise a lot
>about a person in this environment...if they are
>supposed to be on their best behavior and
>yelling at the waitress...it's kind of a clue.
>It's hard to feel someone's personality in a
>meeting room, but lunch/dinner is more relaxed.
>
>I agree with Don that we don't want to wander
>into the realm of being ametuer psychiatrists...
>
>and...my family routinely picks on me because
>there is very little that I actually believe to
>be appropriate finger food. Just a pet peeve of
>mine...i will use a fork for french fries.

Hey Denise!

Do you eat your candy bars with a knife and fork?

JudyT929

I had a dinner interview about 8 years ago, I didn't get the job but we wound up dating for a little while. I will never again agree to an interview with a man that involves socializing, I needed a job a lot more than a date.

pork1

I especially like to do dinner interviews where the ee has also brought the spouse to the interview for house hunting, schools, & etc. On one, I discovered by accident and chance over the talk and "chat" that the individual with whom we were having dinner with was not the spouse at all. Needless to say, he and she were not hired and that was the last interview with him. On another couple interview we found that the spouse was a "real boss" and wore the pants in this family. We should have been more comfortable with our need for a manager who was his own person; we were not and the hiring action took place. He was a real good and technically smart about the "HOG World". It was not to long that we realized that his long and demanding hours on the job was to over demanding on the spouse and they up and left one night without a word. The spouse was to far from HOME in the next state. The male manager was such a "wimp" that he could not call up the courage to take control and make his career opportunity grow. it is a good thing, because the work force of men and women would have replaced his spouse and soon they would be dragging him around by the "Knap of the neck"!

Meal interviews are great and we do them all the time. We don't worry any more about the little stuff, but the big issues that grab you might never have been discovered witho9ut a casual dinner meal with or without the white table cloth, besides the "cat fish eating places" don't have white table cloths. The "crawfish eating interviews" over NEWSPAPER WITH FINGERS FOR TOOLS AND LOTS OF PAPERTOWELS PROVIDES A GREAT MEAL FOR THE COMPANY MEMBERS AT COMPANY EXPENSE!

PORK

Don D

Pork: I'm speechless, except to say your preconceived notions about human nature and how people should behave color your every decision to the point where you have zero objectivity. How much a person acts like you or reflects the ideals of 'your higher ups' should have nothing at all to do with a decision to hire them or not.

A dinner interview at the Catfish Shack or the Crawfish Hut, indeed. And what would you do with the Yankee (or Leviticus devotee) who would eat neither bottom feeder? I suppose they are not fit to work in the Hog World. Do you pay return transportation for these people or bury them on the spot? x:-)

Whatever

Actually, speaking as a Yankee, I just love going to crab houses and eating with my fingers food served on paper. The tables are usually covered with newspaper.

HRinNH

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-16-05 AT 04:11PM (CST)[/font][br][br]As a Yankee and close friend of Leviticus I would simply tell the interviewer that I'm a vegetarian and ask if there was another place where we could dine.

pork1

DON: I would recommend you attend some course work in "psychology of the organization" and really find out that the make up of any organization is truly the amalgamation of the psychology of each of the associated members. The nature of the culture of the organization is a living and breathing representation of the associates from the senior leader to the newest member of the labor force.

Maybe you don't understand the objectivity of my words or purposes for any particular post and it might help if you and the TN character would quit interjecting your weak understanding of my obviously deeper thoughts.

I have never put down any other food, I love to eat most, but there are good and even greater foods that I recommend. Since we do not have a special eating facility for PORK, we usually find the old main stay in our area on the river, where we dine and enjoy the peaceful world in the North Mississippi arena.

Have a nice evening and a blessed one at that!

PORK

System

Oh Pork,

What's that supposed to mean? "We found that the spouse was a 'real boss'?"

TN HR

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-16-05 AT 04:33PM (CST)[/font][br][br][font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-16-05 AT 04:29 PM (CST)[/font]

Pork, you did it this time you nieib and I had nothing to do with it. I simply watched it unfold before my very eyes.

Do you prefer Vaseline or KY?

pork1

You should watch who you call pal!

PORK

TN HR

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-16-05 AT 04:37PM (CST)[/font][br][br]You're right! Post edited to remove the word pal. Thanks for the keen observation which is obviously much deeper than my weaker intelect can handle.

Gene