How to Dress for a Job Interview

The first impression made toward a job interview will likely be your resume or your skills and application, but the first impression you make in person will be how you carry yourself and dress. If a potential employee does not care enough about the job interview to put their best foot forward, then any employer will assume you won’t care much about your appearance on the job either. That’s why how you dress for a job interview is so important.

There is no one ‘right’ way to dress for all interviews, because the dress will change depending on a number of factors. The things you need to ask yourself before you decide what to wear for your job interview, consider the following: the dress code of the company, the job duties required of the job you are applying for, the way the rest of the employees dress during a normal work day, and the current season and temperature outside.

First, do a little stalking – no, not the bad kind, but rather drive by the place where you are applying prior to applying and see what the other employees are wearing. You can drive by around the start of the day or at lunchtime and probably see the most people as they are arriving or leaving the building.

Secondly, take stock of the job duties you will be performing if you were hired. Is it an office job, indoors all the time, with no lifting and little movement? Will you be working in a storeroom or warehouse? Will you be doing mechanic work or working with your hands? All of these things will help you decide what you should wear.

After you have taken stock of the other employee’s apparel and determined the type of clothing you would wear on the job, your best bet is dress one functional clothing level higher than you would on the job. If the office is business casual, you should wear business dress, and so on.

You don’t want to be too dressy, especially for lower paying or manual labor jobs, but you surely don’t want to be underdressed. When in doubt, dressing up a little bit too much is always better than being too casual for a job interview.