Guethshina Altena/Assistant News Director
52 percent of adults don’t bother cutting up their food properly at the table, according to a study of 2,000 adults conducted by Birmingham Food Fest.
This year, the University’s Career & Talent Development Department will be offering a lunch option at their annual dining etiquette for the fall term.
However, proper dining etiquette is needed in many professional settings, including business meetings and job interviews, according to Elery Rojas, events coordinator for the University’s Career and Talent Development Department, formerly known as Career Services.
“Professional dining etiquette is an opportunity for students to learn ….where the fork is, where the spoon is, where the plate is, knowing what to order,” Rojas said.
When interviewing for jobs, it’s very common to have the interview be conducted over lunch or dinner, according to Rojas, which is why it’s important for students to know how to properly dine.
“For instance, knowing how and what to order, you don’t want to get something that’s saucy that ends up spilling over your clothing and during the interview or the conversation that you’re having. Instead of the person concentrating on you, they will be concentrating on the stain,” Rojas said.
Another dining etiquette event is in the works for the spring semester at the Biscayne Bay campus, according to Rojas, as the center tries to cater to all students on the different campuses.
“It’s a little bit of everything. It even includes something on handshaking: how do you shake hands? The different versions of shaking hands, what makes a good handshake impressionable,” Rojas said.
The dining etiquette event covers a variety of different areas, not just formal eating etiquette, but proper etiquette for having conversations and how to be served.
“When you go to a nice restaurant, you are going to notice where the waiters are coming from. There is a certain etiquette where they know how to place your food and you have to make sure that you know how to move when they are servicing the table,” Rojas said.
The center offers services for every student in all the department and majors. The FIU College of Business, the FIU School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and FIU’s College of Law have their own Career Center.
Rojas believes students should participate in the event because not only will they eat a “nice” meal but they’ll be educated on etiquette, dining and the arts.
“[T]hey are also going to be able to find out what it takes when you are interviewing, when you are in front of an employer, when you are having a business meeting, how you should be properly doing everything, etiquette wise,” Rojas said.
During last year’s dining etiquette event, State Farm was the invited employer to share tips and their experiences at business meetings. This year, the center has invited Target to be the speaker to share their knowledge on the topic with the students.
Mohammad Hamad, a freshman majoring in computer science, is just now getting familiar with the center’s resources and is intrigued by the event.
“[The dining etiquette event] sounds interesting honestly… I would invite my friends because if I am benefiting from it, I think they should benefit from it too,” Hamad said.
He would like to go to the event, he said, in case he gets a job interview that is over lunch or dinner. This way, he said, he would know what to do so he could come across as a professional.
“I think that it is very helpful [to teach students dinning etiquette] and I would encourage it because it helps people when they actually have to do things like that,” Hamad said. “It also teaches students about the real world so they will be prepare and ready and so it won’t catch them off guard.”
The Career and Talent Development will host their 24th annual Professional Dining Etiquette on Nov. 6th from noon – 3 p.m. in the MARC Pavilion.
Student can reserve their seats through Handshake. For more information, visit them at career.fiu.edu or call (305)-348-2423.
Featured image retrieved from Flickr.
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