Your resumè is your "business card" in a job interview
Resumè: your business card for the job interview Will you need a business card when you go for a job interview? NO!
As an individual– whether you have a job or are unemployed– if you are invited for a job interview you won’t need a business card. Your contact details should be familiar to the (either through your cv or through info that was provided by others or obtained in another manner by your counterparty).
If you are in a job you should categorically avoid using your employer’s business card: you will be attending the interview for yourself and will not be representing your current employer.
The same applies to the use of your work email when looking for jobs or for personal matters: it’s not appropriate or advisable to use a company’s name when you’re presenting yourself on a personal level. You are presenting and selling yourself and the companies you have worked for and in particular the company are only a minor detail …
If during the interview the interviewer asks you for a business card, as a way of checking that you actually work for a company or out of mere curiosity, you should provide one, but I believe it’s poor form and would be a bad start for a person that’s been invited to an interview to hand out a business card!!!
It’s clearly a different matter when someone works as a freelance professional or entrepreneur. If they have a company it’s fine to use the business card for that company as this is both useful and professional.
In a transitional phase – e.g.
when you are leaving a company and are getting ready to work as a consultant -
but are still making the first steps in that direction and have not yet defined
your offer, etc. – what you need is a simple but professional business card. If,
however, you are consultant working in specific areas you can state what these
are on the front of your business card or, even better, at the back of it.
