There are still divers sticky scenarios to deal with as regards dressing more formally. I have had some jobs where people actually did sabotage my work for dressing a certain way, saying that I was not one of them because they projected that I must fancy myself as being a better sort of person than they. Conversely, there are times when I had secured employ whilst in extremely casual dress which people then found starkly incongruous with my manner and diction.
Also, any given scale of dress formality tends to be applicable mainly within a fixed cultural context. Wearing clothes which might likely be construed as tastefully formal or semi-formal in other cultures seems to be interpreted poorly, even in a workplace which is professed to be âmulticulturalâ.
So, there can be issues with being more formal than they, more formal than they expect of you, formal for the wrong era, formal for another culture - and probably more which donât occur to me at the moment. Many prospective employers may even lack sufficient self-awareness of their own âstandardsâ to even articulate what their misgiving might be.
When I was jobhunting, I always wore the nicest thing I could piece together: Tailored suit jacket, lint free black dress shirt, burgundy silk tie, my eagle scout ring, black slacks, socks, and matte-black dress shoes.
I was jobhunting for about five years before I was accepted for night shift work at a place where I fit in perfectly dressing like a slob in ratty old favorite t-shirts, threadbare jeans that are a decade old, and shoes that are literally falling apart at the seams. Theyâre all so perfectly comfortable, and the best part is nobody has to see me at work. I could wear pajamas, or when the day shift leaves, if I wanted to (but for the security cameras) I could go around in my underpants although thatâs a little too skimpy for me.
