Importance of clothing for interviews

This is a video that summarizes what to wear and what not to wear for a job interview. For more tips, check out "Dos and Don'ts."

According to NBC Nightly News "Are flip-flops an Office Flap?", people are going "more comfortable" to work. They are removing the word "business" from "business casual" and going completely casual to work (wearing flip-flops). This is not appropriate and nor presentable for the company. Check this out for the consequences of continuously wearing flip-flops.

What a person wears for a job interview is very important. It gives the person the right first impression and says, "I'm worthy of the job and I am presenting the company in the best possible way".

What if employees were not dressing properly? There is only one way to fix this problem, make a minimum dress code for all the employees depending on each position and/or department. An article by Klein called "Set Dress Code to Fix Attire Problem" addressed this problem. She discussed how an employer can overcome the problem of employees dressing too sloppy or overly casual. The solution here is having a dress code. Especially if customers come to the office, all employees should dress properly in order to represent the company in the best way possible (Klein 2007). Clothing is not everything but it plays a great role in credibility and reputation.

Once a person sees someone he/she will automatically have some opinion about that person, it might be right and it might not be. Whatever it is, the person still has some kind of image in his/her head about how the other person is, it might be about their personality or their social level or just how related they are to each other.  According to Morris et al, they all concluded that clothing influences "four different judgments: credibility, likability, interpersonal attractiveness, and dominance" (Morris et al 1996). For example, managers usually wear suits, thus, if a person sees someone in a suit they might automatically think he/she is the manager which makes him/her more credible and trustworthy.

Take this as an example, you go to a store and have a problem in something and need someone's help. Two different people approach you. One of them has casual clothes, flip-flops, and hair and facial hair are not groomed well. The other one has a suit on, shiny shoes, and hair and facial hair well groomed. Both of them tell you the same thing "don't worry, I'll take care of it for you, you can leave trust me". Who will you trust? A lot of people might say the person in the suit just because he looks more in authority and more capable, even though both might have the same exact position. This shows that clothing does have a difference and that it should be taken seriously if the person wants to be taken seriously.