Carolina Barbosa

Carolina BarbosaSep 22, 2026

never take an iced coffee to an interview. you won't get the job. that's the actual advice going round the internet right now. & yes, I'm making my case against it with a stick figure & a coffee cup; that's about the right amount of seriousness this debate deserves in my humble opinion. if you have no clue what I’m talking about, let me tell you what happened: A recruiter posted a TikTok. Her career? 16 years placing candidates at Fortune 500 companies. Her claim? An iced coffee makes an interview look like a stop on someone's errands list. within days it was everywhere, in true social media style. everyone had an opinion but, as always, almost nobody checked the DATA. 🕵️‍♀️ worry not, I’m here. I dug & I’m sharing it. you know what ACTUALLY costs Gen Z candidates the job?* ↳ unprofessional attire, 47% ↳ entitlement, 44% ↳ general lack of professionalism, 41% ↳ lateness, 38% ↳ disinterest, 27% the coffee cup isn't on that list. not even the smell of coffee. tea. or water. So I’m afraid to state the obvious, but this is NOT a hiring insight. It’s literally a personal opinion wearing a professional title. 😬 meanwhile the candidates holding that coffee are surviving back-to-back interviews, ATS filters, AI screening rounds, unpaid take-home tasks & rejection emails that explain NOTHING. The drink was never the story. like anything on social, it was just the easiest part of the story to have an opinion on without any actual expertise. I can comment on it because I've sat in interviews & I drink coffee; that's the whole bar. same as whether you should keep your camera on for a work call, or whether it's rude to leave someone on read. no expertise required. everyone's lived it. everyone's got a take. if I were hiring, here's what I'd actually watch: ↳ do they show up prepared ↳ can they think clearly under pressure ↳ do they ask me something sharp back ↳ what’s their level of enthusiasm NOT what's in their hand. *ResumeTemplates.com 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴.

Carolina BarbosaSep 23, 2026

my first client as a freelancer never saw a single one of my posts. whilst I was freelancing here and there, this was the first one I signed when I decided to take the leap earlier this February & be 100% my own boss. I'd worked with someone briefly, crossed paths with them a handful of times after; nothing dramatic, no grand pitch. they mentioned me to a company I'm not going to name, but you've definitely heard of it. ↳ raised over $100M in funding ↳ multi-million-dollar revenue ↳ a genuinely well-known name in its space ↳ used by 3M+ people worldwide A couple of calls later, it was signed. four figures, three months, since then grown into five freakin figures🧑‍🩰 no LinkedIn post did that. no algorithm decided I was worth a shot. someone I barely worked with directly vouched for me in a room I wasn't even in, & that carried more weight than anything I could've written myself. content is the loudest door but IT’S NOT the only one. it built my visibility, my 40k+ audience, my brand deals, my name started to get known for sure. but the door that opened my whole freelance career was someone thinking of me unprompted, months after we last worked together. so yes, I stand by the advice to post consistently. i’d be a hypocrite not to. just don't mistake the algorithm for the whole strategy!!! Word of mouth still opens doors content can only knock on. I said what I said 💋

Carolina BarbosaSep 24, 2026

thank you so much <3