As Thudlow Boink so astutely observed, it’s dang near impossible to guess the dress code. This can’t be a secret to recruiters. My observations of people have led me to believe someone in a suit is either: a) all that, or b) a slimy creep pretending to be respectable. Also, someone dressed like a scrounge is either: a) a scrounge, or b) a bit oblivious to how they appear, but otherwise a fine & competent individual.
If the job is not about fashion design I think you’d be more likely to learn what someone’s sense of decorum & respect is by simply engaging them in a conversation. Throw out a few probe questions to find out what floats their boat, and then get them talking about that. You’ll find out pretty quickly what they think of themselves, of you, and of people who share their interests. Concert T-shirts are a bonus because you’ve got something they should be able to talk about (the event, the band, the genre, etc.).
If someone says they are going to a career fair or interview and you know nothing else about the situation, then a suit is appropriate to recommend. A suit is appropriate for most commercial, industrial, financial, political, clerical, medical, legal, etc. jobs, and that’s most of the jobs out there. But “most” does not equal “all”.
This thread has shown that “A suit can never hurt” isn’t a true statement. The fraction of posts pointing this out isn’t representative of the fraction of jobs for which a suit might hurt, though. It’s just representative of the fraction of posts that acknowledge there are exceptions.
Might you concede that there are some “non-mainstream” jobs where this isn’t true?
It says to me that the guy is clueless. Since we recruit nationally we always phone screen first, and such cluelessness would probably show up there.
When I first did trade show duty we all wore suits - everyone did. The growth of polos came from people on the floor who spent most of their time being reasonably technical not wanting to wear suits. There used to be an ACM conference whose primary feature was a CS PhD job fair. i went there as a student and I went there as a recruiter, and 30 years ago everyone wore suits on both sides.
Some people at shows do wear suits, but it is the exception, not the rule. At least the ones I go to.
When I worked at Sun I (and a lot of other people) got a Chairman’s Award handed out personally by Scott. It came with a lunch, and filming, and was a fairly big deal. No one - from Scott on down - wore a suit. it is the same reason that people in Silicon Valley companies all go on a first name basis.
In Silicon Valley my job is mainstream. College students interviewing are allowed to be clueless - they probably hear this advice and think that a suit is required. But the last time I interviewed I was already a senior person in the field, relatively well known, and if I had worn a suit it would have shown I was clueless and desperate. I brought in some senior people I knew to interview also, and they didn’t wear suits either.
I’m not surprised that defense programmers wear suits. They are stuck working with government. I spent a few years doing a hobby which involved trying to teach defense people what we in the real world did about hardware quality, and it was quite an eye opener. They were years behind and didn’t want to change.
Bullshit on the engineering dress. Managers up the line all dress the same way. I’ve never seen any of my VPs in a suit. And my closest one drops into my office way too often.
I said competence was the highest value, not the only value.
The very nature of our interview format tests for non-technical skills without doing anything explicit. Like many other tech companies, it is six or seven straight hours of mostly technical grilling. If a candidate can make it through that without breaking down, lashing out, walking out, etc., then they can probably survive in the workplace. Frankly, it’s very rarely been a problem for candidates, and virtually unheard of for an actual hire to leave for reasons related to poor social skills.
It is quite onerous. The candidate is already sweating, metaphorically if not literally. It’s a lot of stress. They should at least be able to wear comfortable clothing. I wouldn’t know about nice, tailored suits, but cheap ones that a new college grad could afford are not comfortable.
I know. But I figured starting my question with non-mainstream jobs could more easily break the “always wear a suit” rule. Then it’s just a matter of degree to extrapolate to jobs that are, in fact, rather mainstream.
You know, I am not delusional. I know I am not Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or even Mark Zuckerberg. That means I don’t get to break the rules.
And I’m a grown-up, for heaven’s sake. I am not going to carefully calibrate the exact level of formality appropriate for the particular company. That’s the whole point of suits - they are easy.
Oh, you can tie yourself in knots worrying about the width of the lapel, the exact shade of dark blue (because we all know that black may be appropriate, but it’s just not approachable), and, if you’re really adventurous, the width of your pin-stripe. Or you can wear your grandfather’s old suit, and no one will notice - unless they vaguely think there is something charmingly retro about it.
Suits are a uniform.
Khakis and polo? Also a uniform.
Dockers and button down, sans tie? Also a uniform.
Band t-shirt and jeans with or without holes? Also a uniform.
Women’s office attire? Almost never a uniform. Being a women is still tougher.
My point is that all men slide into uniforms. As they mature, they realize they need different uniforms for different occasions. Interviews, funerals, most weddings, and court typically require the suit uniform.
I’ve worked in the pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and defense industries in Texas and on the West Coast and I can tell you that you would be crazy not to wear a suit to an interview, only because everyone else likely would, so you would look disrespectful by comparison. I have interviewed and hired people who didn’t show up in a suit for IT jobs, but even those people wore dockers and a button down or sweater. If you show up in jeans and a T-shirt, you better have a reputation that proceeds you because if I’ve never heard of you, you aren’t getting hired.
Am I a dick for judging you when I don’t even know you? Maybe. But if you don’t like to follow societal norms of dressing up for an interview, then maybe you also won’t follow other societal norms like showing up for work on time, not sexually harassing female employees, not threatening co-workers, etc. Why should I take the risk? Will I ever have to put you in front of the client? Probably not, but it’s nice to know that if I do on short notice, you won’t make the company look bad. And really, if we are talking about a post-college job where you are an adult, you really need to own at least one suit or a jacket, tie, and slacks. I don’t care if you are a bitchin’ video game designer. Are you still going to wear that Skrillex concert shirt to a wedding, funeral, church, or other formal event too?
It’s for the best, really. You don’t have employees that disrespect you, and I don’t have to work for a guy that thinks I’m a sex offender for wearing comfortable clothing.
That’s sort of what it comes down to in the corporate world. A suit (or something close) is expected. If you can’t follow that norm, what other norms won’t you follow? The corporate world has a lot of following policies and reducing risk.
And yes, some of you are right - if you baulk at wearing the suit for the interview, the corporate norms will probably be chafing, and you should be looking for a different sort of environment. But if that is the case, why is your resume crossing MY desk in corporate America - you aren’t applying for the sort of people I hire. I shouldn’t see people in anything other than at least Dockers and a dress shirt with tie.
There are certainly exceptions to every case and I could probably dredge up an instance or two where someone came dresses better for an interview and did well enough to be considered for job.
However, there is critical shortage of machinists in the United States. So critical that retires can easily go back to work if they choose in any state in the nation. So critical that companies and job shops are poaching students from local community colleges.so critical that you could walk into job hiring, be an ex-felon and with exception of companies which hold certain government contracts gain employment within days.
Your friend more likely got the position for which he applied due.to the skills that he demonstrated more so than the manner in which he was dressed. And the people who were NOT employed either didn’t‘have the skills that they claimed (A big problem when most places are paying at least $20-25 an hour minimum) or committed resume fraud.
I have yet to hear of a qualified machinist who was not hired because he was not dressed to the satisfaction of his interviewers. If I did, I would laugh,as the word gets out quickly and that company would soon find their applicant pool drying up.
While I don’t know the exact employment situation in Minnesota, I have serious doubts that there was a “glut.”
If that were the case, then companies in Eastern Wisconsin, the Chicagoland area, the Bakken oil fields and the Houston,TX area would have all been advertising in your local papers to tap into that overage of machinists as all of those areas desperately needed them at that time,as well as now.
I have been in industrial maintenance for 25 years and the last time that I can remember there ever being “too many” machinists was in the early 1990s after I got out of the military. Very few machinist (either manual or CNC) have been coming out of schools since the early to mid 1980s.
You may assume, therefore, that I do not work in their industries. And that my dressing for an interview they way they dress for daily work would be breaking the rules in my industry.
Of course, I do not dress the way I dressed for my interview every day, either. I keep my emergency dress up clothes handy though, in case a government agency comes to call.
