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?

I interview a lot of people. If one of them brought me a cake, I would think they were crazy. I wouldn't eat it and they definitely wouldn't get the job.

Someone is nice, brings you a cake & you call them crazy & refuse to eat the cake!

& you wonder why this world is so shit??

Have to agree with undersecretary

Can you imagine if a man took a baked cake in? (Remembers builders faces when dh presented them with his home baked cake)

If she were being asked too make a sales presentation, or had used the cake to make a point about something in her interview I think it would be acceptable.
Also if the interview was more unstructured and the "sit down and chat" type interview it would be memorable and acceptable.

I used to work for a well known National Charity I will not name, but where cake making and eating was more or less compulsory.
( consequently almost everyone was overweight...). The cake would have gone down very well, and shown an understanding of the organisations culture. Lol.
Good luck to your friend OP.

I work in Financial Services and never, ever, ever bring in any form of homemade anything. Even for charity bake sales etc.. and I am an AWESOME baker (tho I do like a tub of Betty Crocker ready made frosting!).

I also never pour coffee for others in meetings.

If you are senior.. or want to be so.. demonstrating domestic servitude will not serve your purpose.

Please tell us more OP!

I've brought plenty of cake to work, but it's just really over the top for an interview.

A tad unusual - but we would still eat the cake afterwards gannets.

If we get unsolicited sales calls, appointments are generally offered to those who bring biscuits! (tends to be recruitment agencies etc).

We buy our stationary from a firm that puts sweets in the boxes.

Re people binning home-made cake because you don't know where it's been: you do know that cake is baked in a very hot oven for long enough to kill germs (in most cases), don't you? It might taste bad for other reasons, but I find it hard to believe that it's a hygiene risk.

Mind you, I'm now remembering other threads here where people have disparaged home-made food as gifts because they believe it's just not very good.

I'd never take a home-made cake to an interview, nor (I hope) would my daughter, but anybody binning a cake either of us had made would be missing out (if they liked cake). If you don't like it yourself, why not give it to someone else? I hate the thought of wasting food.

I don't do homemade at work for professionalism purposes.. I eat anything everything and pretty much all of the things outside of work 🍰🍰🍰🍰

I would give her the job on the spot!

Love it, love her, think this might become a thing :)

You'll see this as a plot line in movies soon.

People in my department bring in food to celebrate every possible occasion, so we certainly wouldn't turn down a cake but it would still be very odd at interview.

We also pour each other coffee without worrying about domestic servitude

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
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.

Don't be ridiculous, of course I wouldn't think it had been poisoned. I wouldn't eat the cake because I would have no idea of the cleanliness of the kitchen in which it was made nor of the hands that made it.

It's not very professional, instead could work against her. To call her crazy for bringing you a cake is sad. Mabey she was desperate!

If this had been me, I would have probably eaten the cake before I got to the interview!

I wouldn't mind if someone brought a cake with them if they came for a job interview at my organization, I love cake! However I run my own organization and it is very small and we do things very differently

I've got an interview next week at 2pm.

Thinking about scones but maybe too fussy?
Shortbread it is.😀

I'd have 0 problem with home-baked goods as a safety risk. It's just that a woman who wants to progress and be taken seriously is very unwise to give off the impression that she spends her weekends baking for her colleagues. A shop bought cake is less 'office mum' but you should still not get in the position where only you bring in food.

Someone is nice, brings you a cake & you call them crazy & refuse to eat the cake!

But you don't go into an interview to be 'nice' to the interviewers. You don't KNOW the interviewers. You go in there to impress them with your skills and professionalism. Taking a cake just makes you look like a suck-up who doesn't understand the dynamics and thinks she can pull the wool over their eyes with two penn'orth of eggs, butter and flour.

A good manager and interviewer wants to hire the best candidate on skills and traits, period, and will not be swayed by baked goods.

"I would give her the job on the spot!" Wow even if she wasn't qualified? If that's your recruitment strategy your business isn't going to go far.

"If this had been me, I would have probably eaten the cake before I got to the interview!"

See? By not eating the cake even a bit she demonstrated her professionalism!

"I would give her the job on the spot!" Wow even if she wasn't qualified? If that's your recruitment strategy your business isn't going to go far."

Ooh, criticism.

Well, ok, provided she fitted the bill otherwise. It would give her an edge.

I remember when one of the apprentice candidates did this because her apprentice idea was about baking and even the interviewers found it odd.

There are areas I work in where food and drink are banned (think lab work, or somewhere with things that just don't mix well with coffee and cake). If someone brought cake in I'd be wary that they understood these boundaries. As it is, I have to fight against staff who think that actually, it's reasonable to risk pouring coffee over valuable and unique documents.

So in my sphere, she could be marked down against some of the criteria for interview. If however it was a job requiring hospitality of some sort I'd either ignore it or it might go in her favour. Either way I'd say a risk not worth taking, although in many ways it is a nice gesture.

I think I may offer to teach a short ukulele lesson in my interview next week.

"It would give her an edge." Not in my opinion it's so incredibly corny. And it would make me wonder what she was trying to distract from. If said cake has nothing to do with the role, i'd think she is trying to hoodwink and try to divert attention from gaps in her CV.

So now I am imagining a Cv with cake filled gaps.:)

Lesp,

It can't be both unheard-of and corny at the same time