You’ve obviously never been a stripper.
Or played drums for Warrant.
About a year ago I went to interview with a recruiting agency for a software position. I wore the usual suit and tie. Business casual is typical on the job but I would never even consider interviewing without a suit, you simply won’t get past the first interview. Partway through the interview she said “do you always wear a suit?” I replied that I dressed that way for interviews. She said that that was good because not everyone she saw did. I was shocked. How could anyone applying for a professional position in a business environment not know enough to wear a suit? 
Am I that out of touch? Can you actually get that kind of job now without dressing up for the interview?
Weird. I am struggling with a related issue and have been thinking about posting in IMHO for advice. I guess I’ll tell the story here.
As part of a community outreach program I am a volunteer mentor to a man who claims to want a better job. He said he would like to work in an office and perhaps learn to do some computer work.
I made some calls to people I know and finally got him an interview with a company I used to work with testing software.
He showed up smelling bad in dirty jeans and a flannel shirt.
I was surprised, but also figured that this was partly my fault. I assumed he would know to dress nicely. My old boss really gave me a lot of crap about it too.
So I went and spoke to him (I’ll call him Bill.)
“Bill. Sorry buddy. I should have thought to tell you to dress up.” I pause a little because I don’t know how to say this nicely, but it must be said. “Bill, you do know you’ll have to shower regularly when you work in an office don’t you? When you go to an interview, assume you need to dress well and always always shower.”
Bill says: “I can’t afford nice stuff. I ain’t got that kind of money.”
I look at his lit cigarette, and at his wife who is smoking and at, for God’s sake, the teenager with the cigarette in her mouth and say: “Bill, cigarettes are what, 4 dollars a pack? If you guys are smoking a pack a day each, that would be about $240.00 in a month. If you just cut back some you could save for some nice cloths.”
Bill explodes at me. With a lot of swear words he tells me it is none of my business if he smokes and he shouldn’t have to quit smoking to get a job. It is none of their business either.
This isn’t going well. “Yes Bill, it isn’t my business. But sometimes we make short-term sacrifices so that we can meet our long term goals.”
After a lot of yelling at me and me trying hard not to lose my temper, he says I’m not helping one damn bit and throws me out.
I know I failed here. I didn’t find the right way to communicate. I’ve thought about it a lot. I want to go back and try again, but man, the only thing I can think to say is “Grow the fuck up, you aren’t entitled to a job or any other damn thing and if you want a better life you’ll have to work hard for it you useless fuck.” Of course, that won’t help… but it WOULD make me feel better. 
Ah well, maybe I’m not suited to be a mentor.
Sounds like you’re a great mentor. Nah, you didn’t fail here. Success in this situation is a two-way street. You told him how it has to be, he refuses to get it. Fuck him. Survival of the fittest and all that.
I wholeheartedly support charities that work to better people who want to better themselves, and I commend you for your effort, but this guy obviously doesn’t want to live up to his end of the bargain.
I’m not against telling him what you were thinking of saying after his outburst, albeit much more diplomatically, if the opportunity presents itself. Just tell him how it has to be and be firm about it. I wouldn’t push it though. In the end I recommend mentoring someone who actually wants to be mentored.
And now, to counterbalance my display of Republicanness in this thread, I shall go rail against the religious right’s effort to teach of creationism in our schools.
:rolleyes:
Seriously, what do you expect of yourself, or your boss of you? At worst, you lapsed in not initially informing him of the correct attire (no doubt assuming that he’d somehow be aware of the culture around him.) You explained what is typically expected. You explained how, despite his financial constraints, he could afford to meet the bare minimum of that expectation. If he doesn’t want to do that, then that’s his decision and his lack of motivation, not your communication problem.
I feel the same way about teaching, even though people routinely tell me I should take up that profession. But here’s the thing; while you can’t help someone that doesn’t want your help, you can be a good mentor to someone who is genuinely looking for advice and constructive criticism. Your “Bill” sounds as if he’s looking more for a handout or sympathy to his plight than help at making the effort to seriously improve his life, and there’s nothing useful you can do for him until his changes that attitude.
Hopefully, you have other clients who are willing to make sacrifices and do value your assistance and advice. If not, perhaps you should look elsewhere; not necessarily another career, but another program. If you really like and feel good about what you are doing, though, hang in there. Just my two coppers.
Stranger
For what it’s worth, I think you’re a fine mentor. Don’t ever be afraid to tell the truth- it’s the greatest service you can provide to those that are looking to make it.
I’m sorry that this guy didn’t want to hear a solution to his problem. I’ve met a lot of guys like him- guys that just want to ‘get over,’ thinking that everyone else just lucked into what they have. No amount of advice will help, sometimes.
This ‘You’re not the boss of me!’ attitude is one of the banes of mankind, and infuriates me to no end. It’s small consolation to know that most of these types end up pumping my gas.
I agree with this and it’s why I don’t wear ties to job interviews. I’ll wear the best attire I’m willing to wear to work everyday but that doesn’t include a suit. When I wear a suit and tie I’m uncomfortable and it shows. Instead of projecting an aura of profesionalism I feel like I’m telling the world, “I only wear this for funerals!” In clean pants and a polo shirt I no longer notice my clothes and can concentrate on selling the important parts of me.
I do contract work so I go on interviews more than most people and I pay attention to the results I get based on what I wore. I really get more jobs in business casual than I do in ties.
It’s all about first impressions.
Make a bad first impression, and you may never get the chance to rectify the problem. You may be the best photographer in the world, but if you show up smelly and disheveled odds are you won’t get the job if it requires interacting with the public.
An interview is like a first date. You want to impress the person you’re seeing, at least until you determine you don’t have anything in common. The person with whom you have a date might not mind that you’re wearing jeans and a t-shirt to go to a nice dinner, but then again he/she might. Why take the risk of alienating a person you might want to spend time with?
I’ve always dressed appropriately for job interviews. I determined the appropriate dress by asking the person with whom I would interview. Not doing so seems the height of stupidity to me. It’s part of learning about the company. If you determine, up-front, that the company wants you to wear a suit and/or a tie, and you have a moral/ethical/sartorial/illogical objection to doing so, why bother to interview? You ain’t gonna fit in there.
Well, now we’ve seen the “I can’t afford nice clothes” thing a couple of times in this thread, and I would like to say:
These folks need to go to Goodwill! I have many, many, nice work-appropriate clothes from there. So do a lot of people I know. Fer crissakes, it doesn’t need to be Versace. And, trust me, no one will know the difference. And if you can’t afford $3 for a shirt, then you need the job bad. And if you need the job bad, then don’t bitch about having to buy a $3 shirt to get the job!
Man, why does this thread make me think of the Serenity Prayer?
There’s a distinction here that’s worth highlighting. If you are interviewing for a permenant position, the interviewer wants to make certain you “fit” into their corporate culture. They’re going to invest a lot of time and money into you (and you’re harder to fire if you don’t work out), and really, your skills and experience, while important, aren’t going to make you a keeper if you stick out like broken pinky finger.
But if you are a contractor (and especially if you work off-site) they are most likely planning to keep you only as long as they work needs to be done; they’ll stick you wereever you will be out of sight, they (generally) don’t want you interfacing with customers or representing the company ('cause you don’t), and they are first and foremost interested in whether you can do the work, all other conditions secondary. No doubt many can come up with exceptions to this that they’ve seen, but in general, as a contractor, as long as you don’t look like a complete degenerate, talk the right words, and come with good references, no one is going to be considering how you’ll look in the company picture. With a lifer, they want someone who can look good, play a good round of golf, and will fit well in the long term. You don’t see many grubby CEOs.
Sorry, but them’s the knocks. If you’re an imam, you wear their gear. If you’re a cardinal, you wear the robes. If you’re an officer, you put on the uniform. If you’re an employee, you wear what the boss (or company policy) expects you to wear, within reason. The expectation, in this day and age, is that you’ll wear a jacket and tie, if not a suit, to a professional interview, with exceptions for industries/companies who need specific technical skills over presentation and appearance.
Stranger
Crap, for four bucks he could buy some nice-enough duds at the Salvation Army and have enough left over for a bar of soap. Some people just like being unemployed.
Speaking of that, I usually assume people who under-dress for interviews are going through the motions of looking for work so they don’t get dropped by Unemployment.
In my first post I mentioned that I would wonder whether it was an act of defiance or whether they just didn’t think to call ahead and see how most applicants dressed. One quick phone call and they’d know. In your case (since you’re in IT), they’d tell you “one step up from business casual–just wear your nice pants and shirt and make sure you have a blazer.” IT folks don’t generally wear ties (though some do and we don’t hold it against them), but they do go one step above regular business casual.
Your example of the two applicants (one great but dressing poorly, the other mediocr but dressing well) really doesn’t happen. In the current job market, we usually can get great candidates who also dress appropriately (except when the stupid hiring manager decides to set way too low an advertised salary in which case we get only mediocre applicants regardless of how they dress–but that’s another story).
In a different job market, we may run into that situation. In fact, we have you IT people to thank/blame for our current business casual dress code. Back in '98 we were having a terrible time attracting good IT staff. There was little reason for them to come work for us when the dot coms were all offering more exciting work, paid much more than us, and had a casual dress code. So management decided to make the IT department business casual. It slipped over to the rest of us since it was really stupid to have half the office in suits and the rest in polos.
It didn’t really fix anything since management never did address the pay disparity or the fact that the work was more boring, but that’s beside the point. Yeah, if the labor market is tighter, workers can set more demands and things may change to where we have to look closer at those who don’t dress up for interviews. We just don’t have to right now.
The OP said:
Then others weighed in with:
and
I’ll take “Non Sequiturs” for 400, please Alex.
The OP’s complaint was about people wearing jeans to an interview. It may surprise some people, but it is, in fact, possible to wear jeans that are clean, and to do so without being “smelly” or “dishevelled.”
Out of those people in this thread defending the wearing of casual clothing such as jeans, i have not seen a single person defend being smelly or dishevelled. So dress that straw man in appropriate clothing and send him on his way.
Absolutely there are some jobs where if you show up in a suit and tie it’s a bad thing. One of our local promotional agencies is that way. They assume you’re not creative or innovative and just a corporate drone. That’s why most people who aren’t sure how to dress should call ahead and find out what’s expected.
Wouldn’t calling ahead also demonstrate that you’re not creative or innovative?
I know you were kidding, but some people are actually afraid of calling ahead. I’m not sure whether they’re afraid that they’ll say something stupid over the phone or whether they’ll look ignorant for not just knowing whatever it is they’re asking. Most people just call the HR receptionist or admin and don’t give their names (I’m sure if they were asked they’d give their names–but noone ever asks). Instead they say something like “I’ve got an interview coming up and was wondering if you could tell me how most applicants dress/where do you recommend I park/could you give me the pronunciation of the name of this person I see on my interview list/etc.”
Ooooh, the irony, it burns!
Also from the OP:
Sooo, mhendo, perhaps ONE of us should read a bit more of the OP, don’t you think?
Crud. My apologies on screwing up the spelling of your screen name in the quote, mhendo.
I read it fine, and i saw the reference you quoted. But you’re being disingenuous, because it clearly was not the main thrust of his piece, and is not the key issue in this debate.
The main point of his argument, and, more importantly, the main issue up for discussion here, was that wearing jeans to an interview is inappropriate. No-one has said that coming to an interview “smelly” or “dishevelled” is appropriate, so your reference to it is completely beside the point.
The fact is that the OP has had about 20 applicants show up in jeans, and i’m willing to bet that the reference to smelling of drugs doesn’t apply to more than one or two of those. If all twenty, or even a majority smelled of drugs, i will retract my assertion that smell was not a key issue. But right now, it seems clear that what most people are talking about is the appropriate level of formality, and no-one is defending turning up smelly. That just seems like a pointless road to go down, sort of like saying that people shouldn’t turn up naked.