Dress the way that you consider dressing well. Focus on the job, and don’t let any of this advice move you out of your comfort zone. If you haven’t done it yet, you might want to call the prospective manager and ask what skills you can bring to the table. Dress well, but focus on the job; don’t get wrapped up in yourself.
In the few interviews that I’ve done, I think that I scored a little higher for someone wearing a suit, but I was more interested in whether they knew what they were talking about, had a clear thought process when working on problems and didn’t try to fake what they didn’t know.
If you only wear glasses as an affectation, not to correct your vision, I will not only not hire you, but I will hunt you down and strew your garbage all over your front lawn. I hate that shit.
ETA: I have never considered not wearing my glasses for an interview. It’s hard to talk to people when you can’t see their faces.
Depends on what kind of glasses you have and what kind of image you want to convey. A lot of people look older and smarter in glasses. Others look dopier. YMMV.
I know we’re all joking around here, but can we all honestly say for sure it makes *no *difference? Not even on a subconscious level? When you’re down to two similarly-qualified applicants, the deciding factor can be anything, from who just has the personality you prefer, to who’s more attractive physically, or the one who plays off the firmly-held stereotypes that people with glasses are smart. It’s silly, and no one (I hope) has an applicant checklist that includes whether or not the person wears corrective eyewear, but it’s no sillier to ask if glasses or contacts are preferable, than it is wondering if you should wear a white shirt with your suit, or a pale blue one. It doesn’t really matter… I don’t think.
In any event, I really did lose out on the position because I wasn’t wearing glasses.
I think it all depends on the culture of the company. I work for a company whose founder and long-time CEO hates suits and ties. Wearing a suit for an interview for an engineering position is unlikely to get you brownie points - I certainly didn’t when I interviewed. Given the prevalence of contacts these days, I am having a hard time imagining that glasses make any difference.
I wear glasses because I hate the very idea of contacts, but I doubt I ever got an advantage from them.
I would seriously recommend not wearing glasses if possible. I don’t see glasses as an indication of smarts. I see them as an indication of dorkiness. And let’s face it, engineers are already dorks. So engineers with glasses…you might as well tell them up front that you have no social skills.
Well of course, and I didn’tmean it that way. If that’s the way we functioned, we’d go recruiting at beauty pageants instead of college campuses, but we don’t. Still, physical attractiveness giving you a leg up in your career --in fields that have precisely squat to do with looks-- is very real.
Which would clearly identify the interviewee as an engineer. Wear the glasses. Act like you have Asperger’s. Place an object on the interviewers desk in a random position, then adjust it until it has perfect rectilinear alignment with the sides of the desk. Show no emotion. Show your ability to carry out complex calculations without the use of the HP calculator, then use the calculator to verify your results. Then make an entry in your notebook recording that. If its a mechanical engineering position, ask the interviewer if you can disassemble his desk.
You’re right. Although fields in the hard sciences may be the exceptions. There’s no faking the skills. Either you can walk the walk or you can’t, and your peers will know it instantly. And if you can’t deliver, you won’t survive. Not in these lean times.
OP, if you’re lucky, you’ll get called back for multiple interviews. Wear glasses to half of them. That’ll keep 'em guessing.
Well, it is true that engineers tend to fall upon those who show any weakness and rip them to gory bits. We’re rather like hyenas, in that way. 'Cept we don’t use our teeth, 'cause most of us had a lot of orthodontics as kids we don’t want to mess that up. But slide rules and mechanical pencils (0.5mm) do a lot of damage!
So, yeah. Any sign of weakness – DOOM! Even for a co-op position. We’re all dangerous and stuff like that, yo.
Hold on; I see the pack is circling down the hall. Either they’ve cut out a weakling and are going to strike… or someone brought in holidy cookies and didn’t tell me. Bastards.
Hey, we’re talking about engineers here. It probably would make a difference on a subconscious level–whether or not the guy wore glasses, the old dogs in the place would sense that the candidate was thinking about his appearance and not his monitor.
Hee hee hee… Ever been to an engineer’s funeral? I have. It was really easy to tell family from friends.
