Taking cakes to job interview

[onesupplied]

My lovely friend had a job interview last week. Very large organisation, likely to be a strongly structured interview. I asked her how it went and she said well, and that she had baked a cake and taken it along to the interview.

AIBU to think that this has more likely hindered rather than helped her application?

Is this ever a done thing?

What the heck, good on her !

No. Absolutely no. Maybe take it to work on first day once you had the job but at an interview? I would immediately think what are they trying to distract me from?

In the bin? Why, in case it was poisoned? That's just as odd as making a cake for your interview panel, in my view.

Yeah, I would have put it in the bin too. I don't think the office would feel very comfortable eating a cake from someone who was a candidate. An employee doing that is an entirely different matter.

And to go back to what the OP said, absolutely not the sort of thing you do for a large organisation with a HR department.

Gasp as an interviewer, there is no way I would eat a home made cake bought in from someone I'd never met before and I would also bin it after they'd left.

Oh dear. Even if she did well in the interview, the bringing of cake suggests a lack of understanding of professional boundaries. Even if the cake was damn delicious.

This ^

Would be a massive 'no' from me. Decidedly weird. Like others, I love it when a colleague brings a cake into a staff meeting or something but that is an entirely different scenario.

One of my dd's friends recently had a a series of interviews for a job with a large retail organisation. She was asked to take a "3D representation of herself" to one of the interviews. I think she took a box of printed marshmallows, tailored to reflect her appearance/hobbies/interests.

She got the job (after a many other hurdles...)

Oh I'd probably hire her tbh I think it's sweet

Fuck no!

I can't believe so many workplaces interview in a style where that would even be a consideration either way - surely to ensure non-biased interviewing you just wouldn't consider it either way?! Not best practice at all to consider anything other than answers to questions/presentation style/work related exercises.

I regret to say it, but I would advise any woman who wants to be taken seriously for her professional skills not to take in home-baked stuff, ever. It's like writing 'office mum' on your forehead. 'I will do all the wife work AND emotional labour around here, and never ask for a payrise, because it's not real work anyway, LOL!'

Of course, if you're happy to be the office mum, crack on. But if you want progression and reward, and want to be valued on the basis of your technical, functional and business skills, beware. Maybe bring in a shop cake or box of doughnuts some time if that's a thing in the office culture.

I actually like baking, but I eat the results at home or share them with friends. As an interviewer, a homemade cake would put the candidate squarely in the 'too needy, thinks she can get ahead by sucking up, probably has poor reading of professional norms' bucket. I suppose if your friend and another candidate were both neck and neck at the top of the pile and the manager happened to be one of the rare ones that liked this, it might tip her over the top. But it's much more likely to hurt, and do you actually want to work for a manager poor enough at recruitment and management to be swayed by a cake?

What kind of cake was it?

Seeing is asking the most important question there! :o

That's hilarious. I work in a bakery and if someone bought a cake with them to a JOB INTERVIEW without me asking them for one I'd be extremely weirded out and wouldn't be able to keep it and share it with staff because we don't know if she used the correct hygiene procedures ect and it could make everyone Ill!

Imagine that, someone has an allergic reaction to an ingredient! I doubt she took a list of what she put in there,
That happened to me once at a charity bake sale at a shop I used to work in and I ended up in hospital!

That could be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

I actually quite like the idea of turning up at some big shot interview with cake.

Presumably, she has skills which got her to the interview stage anyway and providing cake shows a kind, human quality which is lovely. I 'd rather work alongside someone like that any day.

Hope she gets the job.

I would never do that, but would be more likely to hire someone that bought a cake ;-)

That's a very weird thing to do and when I recruited, had someone done that I would have considered them very odd. Also, the cake would have gone in the bin.

Me too, but I would have eaten the cake.

The first thing that crossed my mind, was where does baking a cake turn into bribery?
I doubt she did it with bribery in mind and was probably just trying to be nice; clearly I've had too much anti-bribery training, if that's my first thought.

But please let us know if she gets the job...

Bringing a to a professional interview is shockingly unprofessional.

A few thoughts: Was this woman a SAHM for a few years and feels that she bakes great cakes and, in some sort of twisted way, is trying to be true to herself or something? Maybe your friend sees herself as a domestic goddess and thinks that this gesture is witty will and memorable? There are people out there who have take the 'be try to thy self' 'I am amazballs' mantras just a liiiiiitle bit too seriously. Did she wear her apron too?

Bless her! That is just delightfully odd. Unfortunately if I was recruiting the cake would have gone in the bin. Randomly giving interviewers a cake risks giving impression that she is a bit dippy and flaky.

One of my dd's friends recently had a a series of interviews for a job with a large retail organisation. She was asked to take a "3D representation of herself" to one of the interviews.

I know the job market is tough to crack but I seriously wouldn't want to work for a company who made me jump through hoops with this sort of wankery! I'd rather bake a cake!

If your friend has another interview I really think you should practice with her, maybe print some standard questions off the internet. Tell her to wear a suit as well if she doesn't realise that.

The last time I was on an interview panel, one of the candidates got her phone out midway through to show us a picture of her Husband and said "Look at him, isn't he gorgeous?". He wasn't, incidentally.

She didn't bring a cake though. I suppose a nice piece of Lemon Drizzle might have helped to diffuse some of the awkwardness

Where I work it would be even more cringe as we aren't allowed to accept any form of gift, it's a company policy - so she's turn up and we'd have to ask her to take it away with her.

Massively unprofessional UNLESS you've done your homework incredibly thoroughly on the place and you KNOW it would be perfect.

Tell her not to do it anymore, it isn't professional behaviour & if she wants to be taken seriously then she has to stop this behaviour.