Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/03/flip-flops-and-a-hawaiian-shirt-why-it-might-land-you-the-job.html
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(Results may vary, based upon skin color and gender presentation.)
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Reminds me of how so many people somehow convinced themselves that Sam Bankman-Fried’s perpetually schlubby appearance was some kind of indication of his unfathomable genius.
My take is that there’s a big and sometimes important distinction between “ideosyncratic fashion sense” and “makes no effort on personal appearance at all.”
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Reminds me of how one prof ended up getting the job at my uni, despite dressing in jeans and a ratty sweater for his job talk… I doubt that any of the women or POC (he was a Muslim, but was Easatern European, so white) who got to the job talk part would have gotten the job dressed like that…
That said, he was/is an impressive scholar who had a consistent out put and wrote challenging, thoughtful monographs in his field. But he held much of the student body in contempt and sucked at mentoring. And he was a conspiracy theorist… 
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To me dressing down seems like the interviewee just isn’t taking the interview seriously, i suppose it can be a power move but people in the position to do so aren’t going to be hurt if they get skipped over for a job so they have nothing to lose. A well qualified person that still really needs a job would not do this. This whole thing just stinks of privilege and narcissism to me
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Hence my initial comment.
The acceptability of such behavior/attitudes is reserved for certain White males.
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Also the studying saying that if you’re “so unbelievably qualified” then you should do this is ridiculous. I would imagine someone that qualified will have fairly solid economic security, so even if this doesn’t work its not going to hurt them… they have options. A very well qualified person of a lower status will definitely get hurt if they don’t get an opportunity, and sure they might eventually get a job using this method but it doesn’t seem worth it.
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reminds me of this
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My current job is at a small IT firm where nobody ever wears a collared shirt, let alone a suit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my boss wear anything other than black jeans, and a black polo shirt (reportedly, he did wear a suit for his wedding, but only because it was black).
When I applied for the job, the recruiter (who I later learned worked out of the office upstairs) told me that I didn’t need to dress up for the interview. Various people told me to ignore that and wear a suit anyway, but I went with smart clothes (for me), but no shirt/tie/suit, and got the job. I think part of the reason is that I’d dressed like everyone else in the office, and thus someone they’d be happy to work with.
So few jobs these days entail working in a suit/office drag, having to wear one to an interview seems kinda anachronistic.
(This is in the UK anyway, I get the impression from the above that it’s not the case in the US)
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Idiosyncrasy credits is the only concept I recall from the industrial/organizational psych portion of my licensure prep. Relatively few people actually study I/O in school but it’s a standard part of the national licensure process despite its niche status.
At the time, the concept was presented as a kind of credit for established members of an organization, rather than interviewees. The idea that a person who had proven themselves valuable could get away with being a little bit irreverent makes a lot more sense to me than the idea that an unknown could game the system by projecting the right air of confidence. I suspect this slight shift in definition or application is due to “disruptive” tech industry rejections of standard business expectations. And as has been pointed out by @Melizmatic, there is no way this is not restricted to straight white men under most circumstances, particularly when dealing with new hires.
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Something that matters here, is that having the chops and speaking with someone who understands that are not related. If you’re talking with someone who understands who you are and what you can do, then sure, go ahead and dress how you want. But if you’re talking with a worker bee in the HR department or an executive whose only qualification is an MBA then you are likely to get bounced out. (Which is actually fine because no one who knows what they are doing wants a job in that kind of environment.)
What’s important is their perception of your competence. If the person you are interviewing with perceives your qualifications to be strong, then your attire can come off as a power move. If they don’t perceive you as knowing what you are doing then it comes off as disrespectful or slovenly. Which is more about soft skills in some situations than it is about technical skill. The two don’t always go hand in hand.
It’s always about aligning what you want with your approach. If you just want or need a job, then gauge your presentation of yourself to who you think you are dealing with. TBH, if you are interviewing with a creative firm or agency, then dressing like a square might actually be a hindrance since they will be judging you for dressing like someone who can’t think for themselves. If you are looking for a job in the marketing department of a petroleum corporation, then maybe consider something more conservative in dress, at least for the initial interviews with HR before you get in to meet the creative team.
You have to game it out each time. If you’re really worried about it. I don’t tend to worry too much. I tend to wind up in jobs I like more when I just go at it as myself. If I go in trying to perform a certain way then the odds are that I will need to keep performing that way more or less indefinitely. Which is exhausting.
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Again, there is a large gap between people who understand their subject matter and people who don’t. People who know enough about a subject often struggle to communicate it accurately to people who know nothing about it. It can often be difficult or impossible to explain technical concepts in some fields without using jargon, because the jargon is there for a reason.
So if you are speaking with someone who doesn’t know what you are talking about then you will either sound incredibly knowledgeable or you will sound like you’re spouting nonsense, and they cannot tell the difference. That means that their impression of you and your skill will come down to other judgements about you and your character.
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Oh yeah the tech industry and related areas are THE WORST for this (offer valid mostly for straight white men of a certain set of economic classes) and have been since at least the 90s.
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Came here to say this!
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