It’s been seven months since a US recruiter took to TikTok to tell Gen Z job candidates to stop bringing iced coffees to interviews. But the debate continues, with US networks picking up the story in recent weeks and the issue landing in an Australian newspaper today.
In a world of AI job displacement, where graduates are finding it tougher than ever to secure work, you’d think there would be other recruitment-related matters to discuss.
But the fact that getting to an in-person interview has likely never been so difficult for Gen Zs makes questions about bringing a BYO coffee to an interview all the more worth discussing.
The debate started when US-based recruiter Caitlin Wehniainen took to TikTok in February to claim that Gen Z job candidates are bringing takeaway coffees to job interviews.
“Don’t waltz into your interview all casual with an iced coffee; it just looks like you didn’t have time to finish your coffee beforehand,” she said.
Wehniainen made the comments based on 16 years of recruiting, mostly for “super buttoned-up” Fortune 500 corporations.
She said the iced latte makes it look like the candidate’s job interview is just one thing on the list of other errands that day, and that, given they only have 30 or so minutes to make an impression, they should save it for before or after the interview.
I’m not a Gen Z. I haven’t been to a job interview in fifteen years, and there’s no way I would have walked into an interview carrying one before.
But would I have an issue with a candidate bringing one to a job interview?
Absolutely not. If anything, I may even admire the confidence. Maybe even the efficiency of bringing their own, instead of waiting to be offered one.
And I feel like anyone who gets to an in-person interview in this market has earned the right to a BYO coffee, on their terms. Especially those applying for entry-level roles and graduate positions.
After all, they’ve likely survived the AI hiring gauntlet to reach the point of meeting an actual human.
AI is now typically the first gatekeeper job candidates face. With jobseekers increasingly facing tools that scan, score, shortlist and write job ads – and schedule interviews, often with no human involved until the final interviewing stage, according to Jobs and Skills Australia. This same report from JSA warns that as AI speeds up recruitment, it will keep relying on biased shortcuts and will leave great talent behind, unless employers get clearer information about what people can actually do. A number of major employers have now rolled out AI agents to run first-round interviews, while many employers run applicant tracking systems that filter CVs out before a human ever sees them.
And here’s the current state of things for Gen Zs in the Australian job market. Youth unemployment has risen 0.4 percentage points to 10.8 per cent, up 1.1 points on a year earlier according to the ABS August 2026 figures, while youth underemployment is now at 15.6 per cent – with 401,000 young people across Australia wanting more hours. Graduate job postings fell almost 15 per cent last year, marking the third consecutive annual decline, with graduate roles in AI-exposed occupations falling more sharply than others. The latest Intergenerational report from Treasury forecasts say this age group are set to work longer than their older counterparts, while still struggling to build for a retirement.
So if you’re a Gen Z candidate who has survived keyword filters, an AI scoring model, a bot-run video screen, and potentially thousands of people applying for a handful of graduate positions, then you’ve earned the right to bring a coffee to that job interview.
But unfortunately, you also have little leverage to ensure that coffee won’t be the one thing that makes a recruiter decide you’re not the right fit.