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Two equally qualified candidates walk into a corporate interview. One carries water. The other carries an iced coffee. Should that difference matter? For predicting who will do the job well, no. Nothing in the evidence suggests a drink choice tells you anything about future performance. But a viral debate over the question shows how easily subjective impressions slip into hiring decisions.
The scenario comes from an October 2026 essay by Eddy Ng, Smith Professor of Equity and Inclusion in Business at Queen’s University in Ontario. It was published in The Conversation and republished by Phys.org. Ng starts from a TikTok in which an American recruiter suggested that arriving at an interview with iced coffee could look too casual. This article explains his argument and what it does and doesn’t establish.
What the coffee example does and doesn’t show
The coffee is an illustration, not a validated test. Ng’s piece reports no coffee-specific experiment and no numerical estimate of how carrying iced coffee affects interview outcomes. Nobody has shown that it triggers discrimination against any group. The TikTok is the news hook, not data about how recruiters in general behave.
What the example does show is a mechanism. The same drink can be read in opposite ways:
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- One interviewer sees casualness or a lack of seriousness.
- Another sees confidence and ease.
Both readings come from the interviewer’s expectations about professionalism. Neither is evidence about the candidate’s skills.
Interview impressions are not job performance
Ng points to two bodies of research. Both are his summaries of published work.
- Impressions form early. A 2010 study, as Ng describes it, found interviewers can form impressions within the first few minutes, sometimes before substantive questions begin. His article gives no sample size or effect size for it.
- Ratings track presentation. A review of job-interview research, as Ng cites it, found that appearance, self-presentation and nonverbal behavior influence interview ratings more strongly than they predict later job performance.
The consequence is that an interview rating and a performance outcome are different things. A favorable first impression can lift a score without showing who will be more effective in the role.
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Why “polish” and “fit” can carry bias
Ng argues that judgments of polish, fit and professionalism are not applied equally. They can be shaped by age, race, gender and social class. Unwritten rules also disadvantage candidates who lack insider knowledge, such as first-generation professionals who were never told what is “appropriate” to carry into a corporate office.
Two pieces of scholarship in this area show the range, though neither concerns coffee:
- A 2012 meta-analysis by Thomas W. H. Ng and Daniel C. Feldman covered 418 empirical studies and 208,204 participants. It tested six common stereotypes about older workers. Only one matched the evidence: older workers were less willing to take part in training and career-development activities. It shows that stereotypes often fail when checked against data. It says nothing about first impressions or hiring generally.
- Research on natural hair bias in job recruitment is an example of appearance-related recruitment studies. It is not evidence that iced coffee predicts performance or triggers bias.
The online argument was framed as “Gen Z versus everyone else.” Ng argues the real issue is differing assumptions about professionalism and respect, not a generational divide.
Practical concerns versus symbolic judgments
Keep two objections apart. Spilling a drink, slurping loudly or being distracted by a cup are concrete problems that can affect an interview. Deciding that a particular beverage signals unseriousness is a symbolic judgment. The first is about what happens in the room. The second is a guess about character, and it is the one that adds noise to hiring.
What employers can do
Ng’s main recommendation is the structured interview. It is among the more reliable approaches, though his piece gives no validity coefficients and no side-by-side comparison with other methods.
- Ask every candidate the same questions. This stops different candidates being tested on different things.
- Define the criteria before interviewing. Decide what a strong answer looks like for each question, tied to what the job needs.
- Score against those criteria. Rate answers, not demeanor, dress or props.
- Question your own shorthand. If a note says “not polished” or “poor fit,” ask which job-relevant evidence it rests on. If you can’t name any, it is probably an impression.
As Ng puts it: “The goal of interviews is to find who can do the job, not who already knows every unwritten social rule about iced coffee.”
What candidates can do
Ng’s suggestion for anyone worried about a negative impression is simple and cheap: finish the drink before you go in. That is risk management, not an endorsement of the rule. It removes a possible distraction, and the spill risk with it, without requiring you to change anything about how you prepare.
The Bottom Line
Iced coffee says nothing reliable about performance. The useful lesson is for employers: if a drink can change an interview impression, the process leans too heavily on subjective judgment. The fix is consistent, job-related questions and criteria.
