The Job Search and Dress?

Who ever thought that we’d have to talk about clothing choices in my job search blog? Unfortunately, inappropriate interviewing clothing has become a common theme. I know that in the corporate world the limits of the dress code were often tested and even last week at a corporate training session, this very subject was a topic of discussion.

A friend of mine interviewed with a major retail store recently. My friend has excellent taste in clothing and has a knack for dressing beautifully for whatever activity she is attending (she doesn’t spend and arm and a leg either). The retailer was holding an open house for perspective employees and hundreds of people attended. What surprised my friend was the number of people who arrived for the interview wearing shorts, tee shirts, flip flops, or looking as if they just rolled out of bed. What didn’t surprise her was that after several rounds of interviews, it was the professionally dressed crowd who were led into another room to sign the hiring paperwork.

What’s going on? Should people be taught the basics of dressing for a job interview? When my friend and I talked about it, I wondered if some of these people showed up for the open interview dressed like that because they didn’t care if they got the job. Perhaps they showed up so that they could report back to the unemployment office that they applied for position but didn’t get an offer. Who knows?

Another friend told me that she was looking at on-line job postings and noticed that several of them mentioned that “neat, professional dress” was written into the posting. Hummmm, not as uncommon as I had originally thought.

What do you think is going on?