How Should I Dress for an Interview?

Jeannie Ng remembers the day well. It was a few years ago and as a newbie applicant fresh out of college, she was making her way to various job interviews dressed in black pants and a black blazer, sweating under the sun and wondering if there was a more comfortable way to go about job hunting.

She wasn't alone. Fresh graduates, used to the college dress code of jeans and T-shirts, get apprehensive taking on a more corporate look.

"I went to an interview dressed in cargo jeans and a shirt,” Jeannie, a marketing graduate from a Malaysian university, revealed. "The company is in media and I thought that they had a relaxed dress code. The hiring manager took one look at me and I could tell she was annoyed. The interview didn’t even last 15 minutes and, needless to say, I didn’t get a call for another interview.”

Should Jeannie have come in corporate attire? And would she appear overdressed? Not so. According to hiring managers, one should dress appropriately when they attend interviews. It would just be like selling yourself to employers. Generally, one’s attire would reveal some of his character traits such as neatness, being organized, etc.

"I usually expect my interviewees to come in corporate attire, even though our office is in a residential community,” shares Melle Roxas-Pitalgo of iDnet Consulting, Inc. “In selling yourself and your expertise, what you wear – how you present yourself – is part of the package.”

Dressing in corporate attire communicates to the interviewer that you are serious about the job. It will be to your benefit to do some research first. Some companies adopt a more casual dress code but applicants can’t always be sure if the companies they are applying to subscribe to that dress code.

The rule of thumb is to dress one or two levels higher than the job are applying for. Remember, it’s not so much that you’re trying to get hired because of what you wear, but it’s more a matter of not getting yourself eliminated from consideration because of how you present yourself.

Posted by blogadmin on Friday, 07 March 2008 at http://blog.jobstreet.com/