6 ms·

It may seem like you were dressed OK, but do you really know? Does anybody ever say "we can't hire that guy, he dressed up?"

• MrScruff 12y ago
  They wouldn't say that, they'd say 'I'm not sure if this person is a good cultural fit for our company'.
  • bshimmin 12y ago
    I really don't think so. If you went to a first interview in a suit and everyone were dressed extremely casually (flip-flop casually) and then you dressed the same for a second interview, definitely questions might be asked. But on the whole in the UK I would say it's pretty common to dress smartly for a first interview unless you have specific information (eg. from a recruiter or hiring manager) that you should not do that. If I were interviewing in finance, I would definitely wear a suit. If I were interviewing at a startup or a digital agency, or equivalent, I would wear smart trousers (maybe smart jeans) and a shirt. That's playing it safe. Sometimes I interview people who are wearing jeans and a t-shirt and generally look pretty scruffy - I know that they know that that is probably the attire most of their potential future colleagues will be wearing, but it certainly doesn't impress me much. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned. I thought there was a lot of good advice in those slides, incidentally.
    • outworlder 12y ago
      Doesn't hurt to just ask, to whoever your contact is, "hey, is there a dress code?"
      • bshimmin 12y ago
        Absolutely right. If I turned up to a job interview in a suit and everyone else was in beach attire, I'd absolutely ask about the dress code and make a joke about my own attire.
  • nrzuk 12y ago
    I always wear shirt and tie to the interview then ask about dress code as if they expect me to sit there developing suited and booted I'm not the guy for the job!
• Bahamut 12y ago
  Well, it has been mostly startups and tech companies, so a suit would have definitely been overdressed as far as the norm goes.
• FLUX-YOU 12y ago
  Yes, they do, and I've seen it once or twice on here from blog posts from company leads/founders talking about their applicants. I don't have it handy, because I don't bookmark that sort of thing, but they believed that you could overdress. They're simply looking for someone who doesn't dress up because they believe that will indicate someone that they'd want to hire. You, as the applicant, may not be aware of this because there's often incomplete information on both sides of the table (that's what the interview is for). You can always ask indirectly, stop by their place and peek through the windows, or research this information yourself, like looking at company photos. Or you can just do what I do and dress up anyway because someone who believes that dressing up is a negative mark is probably not compatible with me.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• Kiro 12y ago
  An applicant came to our job dressed in a suit and it looked really strange and made us question his judgement and experience.
  • peteretep 12y ago
    I'm curious about where your company is, how big is it, and what kind is it?
  • kasey_junk 12y ago
    If you didn't tell the applicant ahead of time not to wear a suit, it was your fault he wore one. Being dressed in a suit is the standard in the professional world. Just because you (and I) work in an environment that doesn't conform to that, doesn't make the applicants judgement suspect, it makes our worldview skewed and we should be prepared for that. Further, it is common courtesy to tell an applicant not to bother with a suit, just in case it is in the back of their closet gathering dust...
• hobs 12y ago
  After the second interview, the recruiter told me to stop wearing a tie.
• fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  No, but if one wears an ill-fitting suit, and or is visibly uncomfortable because of their clothing; that could negatively affect an interviewer's perception of a candidate.
• danielweber 12y ago
  Does anybody ever say "we can't hire that guy, he dressed up?" It's come up a few times on HN that some companies do do this. They are widely regarded as completely nuts.
• shalmanese 12y ago
  > Another quick story before I really dive into this blog post. We had a gentleman over to interview for one of our account executive positions at 42Floors. He had strong experience leasing SF office space: great resume, great cover letter, did well in our initial phone screen. > When he walked in the door, we could hear the clacking of his shoes on our hardwood floor. He was dressed impeccably in a suit that probably cost more than my first car and was carrying one of those leathery-thingys that seemed to exist only for the purpose of being carried during interviews. > I stole a glance to a few of the people from my team who had looked up when he walked in. I could sense the disappointment. > We’re all happily wearing blue jeans and sneakers. It’s not that we’re so petty or strict about the dress code that we are going to disqualify him for not following an unwritten rule, but we know empirically that people who come in dressed in suits rarely work out well for our team. > He was failing the go-out-for-a-beer test and he didn’t even know it. http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floors.com/interviewing-at-a-startup/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floo...