What happened
A TikTok recruiter told candidates not to bring iced coffee to a job interview, and the advice went viral. As reported by ERE, the reaction on LinkedIn and TikTok was loud, with some people defending the reasoning and many criticizing it.
The ERE authors, who come from a background in the psychology of work, argue the real issue is not coffee. It is the misuse of criteria. A criterion should be a measure of something that predicts how a person will do the job. An unwritten social norm does not meet that test, especially when staff inside the organization are likely carrying iced coffee themselves.
They tie this to the Horns effect, where one perceived flaw leads to a rejection. The same thinking shows up when a single typo sinks a resume. Their fixes are practical: a scoring rubric that combines everything learned about a candidate, training for interviewers on bias and sound interview technique, and clear communication of any rule the organization truly cares about.
Why it matters if you are hiring
Every hiring manager has a few private tests. A firm handshake, a certain kind of follow-up email, a clean resume with no slips. Some of these may relate to the role. Many do not, and when they decide who moves forward, you lose strong candidates for reasons you could not defend in writing.
This costs most where talent is tight. If you are hiring bookkeepers, plant supervisors, sales reps or analysts in Canada, you are competing for a limited pool. Screening out a capable person over a drink, a typo in a role that does not involve writing, or a style quirk narrows that pool for nothing. A bad hire also comes back to you as another search.
It also raises fairness risk. Informal standards tend to reflect the background and habits of the people applying them, which is how bias gets in without anyone intending it. Interviewers who score against the same written criteria are easier to coach and easier to defend.
One thing to do this week
Take one open role and write down the 4 to 6 things a person must be able to do in the first year. Turn them into a simple 1 to 5 scoring sheet and give it to every interviewer before the next conversation. Ask each interviewer to score only against that sheet and to flag any other reason they have for rejecting someone, so it can be checked against the job.
Traverse has placed operations, finance, sales and other professionals with employers across Canada and the US since 1997, and we help hiring teams define role criteria so the people they meet are judged on the work.