Friends don't let friends drink and look for work

Well, to be fair, if I was conducting a job interview, I wouldn't feel too good about hiring a dude who kept taking pulls from a flask during the process...

Job applicants who drink alcohol are perceived as less intelligent and less hireable by American bosses, a bias dubbed the "imbibing idiot bias" in a study published on Monday.

In a series of six related experiments, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania found that an association with alcohol caused observers to "expect cognitive impairment" in a job seeker.

"Merely holding an alcoholic beverage may reduce the perceived intelligence of the person," Scott Rick and Maurice Schweitzer wrote.

The article goes on to mention that this is part of an experiment where they showed a bunch of management types "a video recording of a dramatized interview over dinner between a pair of actors playing a manager and a prospective hire."

A job interview over dinner? I suppose it happens, but none of my interviews have involved a meal. They've actually all been more about fluorescent lighting and cluttered desks, though I think one guy who was interviewing me had some Chinese takeout in his office. At least it smelled like Chinese food.