4 ms·

I'm a hiring manager at a small company with a tech focus (we have a non-tech product, but we sell that product on the web and have a lot of tech behind it). I

I'm a hiring manager at a small company with a tech focus (we have a non-tech product, but we sell that product on the web and have a lot of tech behind it). I agree with most of this, with some big caveats. "If you’re not different then you’re boring." That's not true at all. If you send us a poster, a video or (god forbid) a song you wrote, we'll wonder if you can get along in a work environment. This isn't summer camp, it's a job. We want to know if you can do the work. "dress accordingly to the company’s culture" - no, no, no. Dress like you want the job. When you work here, you can dress however you want. Most people wear jeans and t-shirts. But showing up to an interview like that looks like you don't really want the position. Put a tie on. Even better, wear a suit. "If you can’t be genuine, real and comfortable in the conversation then forget it." If you can't be comfortable in an interview, then you're human. We recognize the inherent stress in an interview. Don't worry about appearing aloof. We'd rather you be anxious to get the job.

gdubs 14y ago
I personally think telling young engineers they should put on a suit and tie for an interview is a mistake. It's hard enough for junior devs to relax during an interview.
thedufer 14y ago
> Even better, wear a suit. I disagree. The rule I've always heard is that you should be the best-dressed there, with an implied "don't over-do it". If everyone else is in jeans and you're in a suit, you don't look like you fit in. If you you're in slacks and a nice shirt, you look nice without standing out.
- drobati 14y ago
  How are you suppose to know how they will be dressed? Then, it is in fact appropriate to be the best dress rather then the worst dressed.
  - derefr 14y ago
    I'm guessing that there is a cognitive divide here, between: 1. people who apply for jobs they see ads for, by just doing the phone screen + showing up at the interview; and 2. people who know someone who works at the company, have heard stories of how the company is, see people from the company getting lunch around town, might have even informally asked the person-qualified-to-make-hiring-decisions whether they're hiring--and then go through the interviewing process. In the latter case, you obviously know exactly what the dress code is like before getting there.
  - _kst_ 14y ago
    Ask. Just ask your contact something like "Should I wear a suit and tie, or is business casual ok?"
    - petdance 14y ago
      I think that makes you sound like a little kid, an amateur. You're an adult, so don't ask other people what you should wear.
      - _kst_ 14y ago
        Different places have different expectations, and there's no reliable way to know in advance what those expectations are going to be -- other than asking. I think most employers understand that. If you can afford to say you wouldn't want to work at a place that expects a suit and tie for an interview, that's great -- but not everyone has that luxury. Asking what to wear has generally worked just fine for me.
- codegeek 14y ago
  "If everyone else is in jeans and you're in a suit" 2 things on this: First, you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans. Second, all those in jeans are not the one that have a job interview.
  - thedufer 14y ago
    > you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans This is something you ask your recruiter/HR contact. > all those in jeans are not the one that have a job interview That's why I advocate dressing one step above the current employees, not the same as them.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - gavingmiller 14y ago
    > you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans If you don't know this, you've failed at researching for your interview.
- pnathan 14y ago
  The rule I've heard is that you dress one notch better than the interviewers. E.g., if they will be in jeans, you wear a nice shirt & slacks. If they are in slacks, you add a tie. Etc. I prefer nice shirt & slacks, sometimes with a tie. (Note: Your contact in HR at the company will know the dress code and should be able to give you advice for the expectations of dress code for candidates).
- richardlblair 14y ago
  The biggest mistake I made out of college was wearing a suit. When I interview now I am in jeans and a nice shirt, but that doesn't differ too much from what I'd normally be wearing. If you don't like it, I don't want to work for you... I want to know who you are, not the facade you put up in order to get the job.
radley 14y ago
Bay Area: suit == rookie or hipster
Okvivi 14y ago
I also disagree with the "wear a suit" idea. After about a hundred interviews at Google, I've seen a pretty good inverse correlation between how dressed-to-impress a candidate is and their real performance in the interview. The best engineers rarely give a shit about how they show up at an interview, and I don't really care if they wear a tie or a tshirt, as long as they are comfortable.
nawitus 14y ago
> But showing up to an interview like that looks like you don't really want the position. Put a tie on. Even better, wear a suit. Do you have empirical evidence that applicants who don't wear a suit to the job interview perform worse at their job? Or is this like the supposed British way of "screening" applicants: if they make random mistakes with etiquette they're pretty much disqualified over people who follow "proper etiquette". As a personal note I actually like formal/classical clothing, but I wonder what kind of evidence hiring managers have to correlate clothing with job performance.
vacri 14y ago
I've always thought that if you don't know what the ideal dress code would be, wearing a suit to an interview where it's not required will do less damage than wearing casual clothes to an interview where a suit would help. Incidentally, I refer to my suit as my 'job interviews and funeral clothes'.
doktrin 14y ago
> Put a tie on. Even better, wear a suit. This is going to get a lot of mixed response, in part because it's so contextual. On the east coast, for instance, it's not uncommon to dress up for interviews (even for some dev positions, but not all). However, in the Bay Area it would be completely unheard of for an engineer to show up to an interview wearing a suit. Honestly, it would look absurd.
- epoxyhockey 14y ago
  in the Bay Area it would be completely unheard of for an engineer to show up to an interview wearing a suit ..except when applying at a financial services firm.
  - aplusbi 14y ago
    FWIW I interviewed at a financial software company in NY wearing a button-up shirt and jeans. I got the job. But that company had a strong developer culture.
  - doktrin 14y ago
    Fair. To be honest, while I'm aware that industry exists in SF it's so far outside my typical radar that I often forget about it entirely.
pnathan 14y ago
If someone shows up with a suit for an interview as an engineer, I wonder what they are trying to cover up. In terms of appearance, I expect a candidate to be clean, neatly dressed, and generally presentable. More than that starts triggering my alarms of "using dressing up to cover up capability deficiencies". I also don't want to see a poster/song/video unless its (1) academic poster or (2) they demonstrate something about your engineering prowess. E.g., I would be interested in a Youtube video demonstrating their sweet graphics/video game they wrote. In my opinion, it's all about relevance.
ww520 14y ago
I remember dressed up in suit and everything for the interview of my first programming job. The hiring manager laughed upon seeing my suit and said it's overboard, and proceeded to give me some interview tips since I was young and didn't know better. I got the job at the end, not sure it's the suit or something else.
apendleton 14y ago
In a weird way, I think you and the authors sort of agree -- their premise is that many applicants don't want to work at companies that they perceive to have a more traditional workplace culture, so they should tailor their applications, personal presentation, etc., accordingly. It sounds like following this advice might make candidates less attractive to your company... but then, it sounds to me like your workplace culture is, at least in some sense, a more traditional one, so (no offense) the target audience of this article probably doesn't want to work there. To the extent that the job application/interview process can match the right employee up to the right company in terms of cultural fit, everyone benefits, and the corollary is that the process should facilitate not matching employees and companies up whose ideal office cultures align poorly. For my part, having done a bit of interviewing and resume-reviewing, a memorable application is extremely important, and while I would probably be a little weirded out by someone submitting a song they wrote, resumes and cover letters that just list fraternity leadership positions and the like are unlikely to make the cut. Likewise, if you're a suit person, I have no objection to you wearing a suit to an interview, but lots of programmers are not suit people, and showing up to an interview dressed in a way that obviously makes you uncomfortable does nobody any favors.
starky 14y ago
"If you’re not different then you’re boring." This statement is completely true, if you aren't doing something to set yourself apart from the other 50 applicants for the job, then you are pretty much leaving yourself up to luck whether or not you get picked. I do however disagree with their suggestions for the vast majority of jobs out there. I would only send a poster/video if I knew the person that is probably going to look at it will respond positively to it. This could be effective for a marketing or graphic designer type of position. I would never do something like that for an engineering position. You must market yourself effectively to get interest. Applying for a job is just selling a product (you) to a company and unless you stand out they aren't going to have any interest in you.

gdubs 14y ago

I personally think telling young engineers they should put on a suit and tie for an interview is a mistake. It's hard enough for junior devs to relax during an interview.

thedufer 14y ago

> Even better, wear a suit. I disagree. The rule I've always heard is that you should be the best-dressed there, with an implied "don't over-do it". If everyone else is in jeans and you're in a suit, you don't look like you fit in. If you you're in slacks and a nice shirt, you look nice without standing out.

drobati 14y ago
How are you suppose to know how they will be dressed? Then, it is in fact appropriate to be the best dress rather then the worst dressed.
- derefr 14y ago
  I'm guessing that there is a cognitive divide here, between: 1. people who apply for jobs they see ads for, by just doing the phone screen + showing up at the interview; and 2. people who know someone who works at the company, have heard stories of how the company is, see people from the company getting lunch around town, might have even informally asked the person-qualified-to-make-hiring-decisions whether they're hiring--and then go through the interviewing process. In the latter case, you obviously know exactly what the dress code is like before getting there.
- _kst_ 14y ago
  Ask. Just ask your contact something like "Should I wear a suit and tie, or is business casual ok?"
  - petdance 14y ago
    I think that makes you sound like a little kid, an amateur. You're an adult, so don't ask other people what you should wear.
    - _kst_ 14y ago
      Different places have different expectations, and there's no reliable way to know in advance what those expectations are going to be -- other than asking. I think most employers understand that. If you can afford to say you wouldn't want to work at a place that expects a suit and tie for an interview, that's great -- but not everyone has that luxury. Asking what to wear has generally worked just fine for me.
codegeek 14y ago
"If everyone else is in jeans and you're in a suit" 2 things on this: First, you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans. Second, all those in jeans are not the one that have a job interview.
- thedufer 14y ago
  > you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans This is something you ask your recruiter/HR contact. > all those in jeans are not the one that have a job interview That's why I advocate dressing one step above the current employees, not the same as them.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- gavingmiller 14y ago
  > you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans If you don't know this, you've failed at researching for your interview.
pnathan 14y ago
The rule I've heard is that you dress one notch better than the interviewers. E.g., if they will be in jeans, you wear a nice shirt & slacks. If they are in slacks, you add a tie. Etc. I prefer nice shirt & slacks, sometimes with a tie. (Note: Your contact in HR at the company will know the dress code and should be able to give you advice for the expectations of dress code for candidates).
richardlblair 14y ago
The biggest mistake I made out of college was wearing a suit. When I interview now I am in jeans and a nice shirt, but that doesn't differ too much from what I'd normally be wearing. If you don't like it, I don't want to work for you... I want to know who you are, not the facade you put up in order to get the job.

radley 14y ago

Bay Area: suit == rookie or hipster

Okvivi 14y ago

I also disagree with the "wear a suit" idea. After about a hundred interviews at Google, I've seen a pretty good inverse correlation between how dressed-to-impress a candidate is and their real performance in the interview. The best engineers rarely give a shit about how they show up at an interview, and I don't really care if they wear a tie or a tshirt, as long as they are comfortable.

nawitus 14y ago

> But showing up to an interview like that looks like you don't really want the position. Put a tie on. Even better, wear a suit. Do you have empirical evidence that applicants who don't wear a suit to the job interview perform worse at their job? Or is this like the supposed British way of "screening" applicants: if they make random mistakes with etiquette they're pretty much disqualified over people who follow "proper etiquette". As a personal note I actually like formal/classical clothing, but I wonder what kind of evidence hiring managers have to correlate clothing with job performance.

vacri 14y ago

I've always thought that if you don't know what the ideal dress code would be, wearing a suit to an interview where it's not required will do less damage than wearing casual clothes to an interview where a suit would help. Incidentally, I refer to my suit as my 'job interviews and funeral clothes'.

doktrin 14y ago

> Put a tie on. Even better, wear a suit. This is going to get a lot of mixed response, in part because it's so contextual. On the east coast, for instance, it's not uncommon to dress up for interviews (even for some dev positions, but not all). However, in the Bay Area it would be completely unheard of for an engineer to show up to an interview wearing a suit. Honestly, it would look absurd.

epoxyhockey 14y ago
in the Bay Area it would be completely unheard of for an engineer to show up to an interview wearing a suit ..except when applying at a financial services firm.
- aplusbi 14y ago
  FWIW I interviewed at a financial software company in NY wearing a button-up shirt and jeans. I got the job. But that company had a strong developer culture.
- doktrin 14y ago
  Fair. To be honest, while I'm aware that industry exists in SF it's so far outside my typical radar that I often forget about it entirely.

pnathan 14y ago

If someone shows up with a suit for an interview as an engineer, I wonder what they are trying to cover up. In terms of appearance, I expect a candidate to be clean, neatly dressed, and generally presentable. More than that starts triggering my alarms of "using dressing up to cover up capability deficiencies". I also don't want to see a poster/song/video unless its (1) academic poster or (2) they demonstrate something about your engineering prowess. E.g., I would be interested in a Youtube video demonstrating their sweet graphics/video game they wrote. In my opinion, it's all about relevance.

ww520 14y ago

I remember dressed up in suit and everything for the interview of my first programming job. The hiring manager laughed upon seeing my suit and said it's overboard, and proceeded to give me some interview tips since I was young and didn't know better. I got the job at the end, not sure it's the suit or something else.

apendleton 14y ago

In a weird way, I think you and the authors sort of agree -- their premise is that many applicants don't want to work at companies that they perceive to have a more traditional workplace culture, so they should tailor their applications, personal presentation, etc., accordingly. It sounds like following this advice might make candidates less attractive to your company... but then, it sounds to me like your workplace culture is, at least in some sense, a more traditional one, so (no offense) the target audience of this article probably doesn't want to work there. To the extent that the job application/interview process can match the right employee up to the right company in terms of cultural fit, everyone benefits, and the corollary is that the process should facilitate not matching employees and companies up whose ideal office cultures align poorly. For my part, having done a bit of interviewing and resume-reviewing, a memorable application is extremely important, and while I would probably be a little weirded out by someone submitting a song they wrote, resumes and cover letters that just list fraternity leadership positions and the like are unlikely to make the cut. Likewise, if you're a suit person, I have no objection to you wearing a suit to an interview, but lots of programmers are not suit people, and showing up to an interview dressed in a way that obviously makes you uncomfortable does nobody any favors.

starky 14y ago

"If you’re not different then you’re boring." This statement is completely true, if you aren't doing something to set yourself apart from the other 50 applicants for the job, then you are pretty much leaving yourself up to luck whether or not you get picked. I do however disagree with their suggestions for the vast majority of jobs out there. I would only send a poster/video if I knew the person that is probably going to look at it will respond positively to it. This could be effective for a marketing or graphic designer type of position. I would never do something like that for an engineering position. You must market yourself effectively to get interest. Applying for a job is just selling a product (you) to a company and unless you stand out they aren't going to have any interest in you.