Dress advice for interviews

A smart suit and cons?  I wonder where he got that idea from...

Hi Jasmine,

I have defied a few of your suggestions simultaneously and fortunately, have never been adversely affected. :)

As an aside to this I'm interested to hear other HR opinions of dress code for males - particularly if they are being interviewed for a manual Cleaner role. I would always say smart and clean as many have already advised, but I have also heard some managers say that a suit (and tie) is bit much for this kind of manual role - however you can never be overdressed for an interview can you? Interested to know your views....

Clare
For me a suit wouldn't be expected but probably a plain shirt (with optional tie) and clean formalish trousers

Hi Paul I spotted this on twitter yesterday and thought I'd share with the group here twitter.com/.../839036775641284608 - quite relevant to the discussion on dress. The social media audience was definitely in collective agreement that this girl had made an effort and looked polished and ready for work. But her interviewer allegedly disagreed.

I think this girl looks smart but at the same time is clearly expressing a bit of her personality. Don't see anything wrong with it.

Hi Linda
We are offering advice on what to wear to an interview because someone asked us for our advice. No one is arguing for HR to have a seat on the board to uphold dress codes at interview or that this is what the profession is for. One of our virtual colleagues has simply come to his network for a bit of advice for his daughter. Not every post on here deals with obscure legal points.

Sorry for late post Paul, I have 3 daughters who have all gone through this more difficult than it should be scenario, they have come up with their own response.

A couple of days before their interview they visit the business and watch staff arrive/leave, they then dress in a similar smart version of what they have seen the staff wear.

Their premise is that a similarity in work wear develops amongst work colleagues and that if they look like they will fit in from the off then they stand a better chance, too be fair they have had real success in interviews.

Interesting topic! I've interviewed people for all sorts of roles. I find people going for things like gardening, engineering and cleaning jobs either turn up in their work wear from their current role, or just something very casual. Sometimes not even clean! I don't really care, if they prove to be the best and right person for the job, I'm not going to select someone less suitable just because they may have been dressed better. However, I do find most of the time the ones who make more of an effort with their attire also seem to present themselves better in the interview. Maybe that's unconscious bias on my part, but I don't think so - reading the notes back usually confirms they did give better answers to the questions.

Then you have roles that are either more managerial, office based or customer facing. I might actually turn someone down if they were really scruffy for one of these roles, but as long as they manage tidy and presentable, I just think it's better to select the strongest candidate, not the best dressed. Times they are a changing - the world is less formal now but you can still get brilliant people into roles - its just that they might be wearing jeans.

I mean think about it - if someone is office based in the finance team, they're not customer facing normally. Do I give a stuff if they wear jeans? Or do I care that they're not going to make a huge blunder and cost the company £1000s? Anyway its off topic a little - to answer the OP's question, I would just say whatever makes them comfortable.