BoilerUP

A prospective employee should have enough good sense to dress at least business casual when going to a meeting whose sole purpose is to give said prospective employee info on a company they want to work for. This is true in all industries...not just aviation.

I regularly go to lunch with a friend who works for a company that I'd LOVE to work for, and he knows it. During these lunches, we always dress casual (t-shirts and shorts) and spend more time catching up and BSing than eating.

If he told me "Hey, I know you wanna work here...you wanna get lunch so we can talk about it? I'll see if another guy can come along." then I'd damn sure be wearing slacks and a collared shirt. I'd rather be grossly overdressed in comparison and be the butt of their jokes for an hour than to leave the other guy I don't know thinking I'm too casual. After all, you never get a second chance to make a first impression and all that...

I'd also be buying that lunch, but that's neither here nor there...

givememywings

I think a "great" company would offer to buy your lunch and you should accept graciously. They might find it insulting if you insist on paying. Hell, even the regional I used to work for bought my lunch during the interview.

FlyJSH

Mine too. Little did I know it would be my last meal.

frozenboxhauler

Boiler, here is my example; You are my good bud and work where I'd love to work. We decide to have lunch and to talk about your company and YOU show up with the boss man whithout giving me a heads up? This is an interview that you never saw coming! I agree, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. In my opinion, the guy was blind-sided.
Cheers,
fbh

NowCorporate

If they invite you to lunch to talk about the job DO NOT insist on buying.

They will grab the check. Just comfortably say Thank You at that moment and again when parting ways. Thank them for their time. Dont throw money down, dont even grab your wallet.

Anything along those lines becomes weird....

Ewfflyer

Good points here on some "unknown" etiquette for most of us

Floyd94

I'm finding it hard to believe that people out there are this flippin' retarded. Are you guys serious with this stuff? Most of it's just plain common sense, and some of you need to get out more often.

Ewfflyer

I don't completely believe this. There are many different ways of going about things. Some folks truly appreciate any favors, and picking up the tab on lunch is the smallest thing to do for such things. Now where it gets tricky is in some of these situations above. I've been offered to be covered many times, and sometimes I take them up on it, othertimes I will cover myself. It really comes down to "it depends."

Other influences are dependent on what part of the country are you from(and currently in), what past employment you've had(there are plenty of people that don't get 91 ops because they went from CFI to airline), etc...

BoilerUP

Exactly.

Much like everything in life (personal and professional), there are few hard/fast rules.

FlyerJosh

fbh,

Just to clarify, this individual was not a friend or even an acquaintance. Instead he was somebody that sought me out (cold called) and requested some info about the company. Being a nice fellow and always willing to mentor somebody, I told him I'd be happy to meet for lunch. I didn't blind-side him, but told him "I'll see if one of the other pilots might come along- heck the managers are usually looking to get out of the office."

Some people just never were taught to think of every opportunity as a potential interview.

Josh