IT Job Interview Dress Code
Sunday December 28, 2008
One of the most difficult situations we often face is what to wear to a job interview. For IT people, not really known for their fashion sense in the first place, it can be more challenging to find the right look. CIO.com has a great article on what to wear to an IT job interview. And be sure to read the comments at the bottom of the article.
Click the comments link below and tell us what you think. Is khakis and a clean polo an appropriate dress code for IT professionals? Or does the interview require something more?
Comments
It depends whether you are trying to communicate that you always want the entry level job or lower management job–or if sometime you want to be the CIO of the company. I have held high leadership positons and since retirement have been a professor of leadership at a university. I would advise interviewees to dress up rather than dress down.
I don’t see any harm in suggesting a suit and tie if you have no other information to go on. That advice to candidates is perfectly fine (if they value being hired over being hired at a place that knows how to evaluate important characteristics over insignificant details). At the same time if you are a manager and you evaluate software developers on how they dress please quit and go work in some other line of work, you really don’t have what is needed to manage software developers.
If you are hiring someone to sit in meetings with MBAs and translate technology to them, then maybe wearing a suit is needed. But if they are going to create code 90+% of the time the suit is a completely silly measurement of value.
Some related posts on my blog
http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2008/01/07/it-talent-shortage-or-management-failure/
http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/10/07/hiring-the-right-workers/