I-banking interviews next week - Help me pick an outfit - Page 2

when i said manicured, i meant clean.....expand your horizons.
subs/seamasters/etc??? dude is a student......
(agree with the over the top blue shirt comment. not true.)

as a person in the line of work, we have never turned anyone away for wearing a terrible shirt/tie combination. We're just looking to see that you're not wearing jeans and a button down (which i've seen before) I would go with a white shirt / blue or red tie (doesn't need to be solid).

I also would make sure to leave the backpack at home and just carry the portfolio + resumes

I work in the industry on the west coast. White shirt is always the right choice for an interview. You probably know, but I just wanted to remind you not to wear a polo collar dress shirt. A basic tie is perfect. Now is not the time for crazy ties/pocket squares/socks. You can bring those out (like I do) after you get the job. I would even say no pocket square at all, but if you must, only a white one folded in the Gregory Peck style.

   Other than that, just a portfolio with note pad for taking notes, enough copies of your resume (on regular white paper) for each person you are interviewing with in case they all for get to print one. And most important of all, have some great questions to ask about the company and the position for when they ask "do you have any questions?" I have see the decision on who gets a position come down to who asked the better/more thoughtful questions.

 

 

You will do fine.

watch doesn't matter much, but i'd feel self conscious rolling into an interview for an analyst position wearing a rolex sub, panerai or some other similarly flashy watch. lots of the senior guys wear timex iron man style watches. the advice above that appearance won't matter that much sounds right. i don't think you'd lose any points for wearing a nice tailored suit, shirt, tie and shoes, but i'd leave the pocket square at home and forego a tie clip. i honestly don't think they care how good you look; it's whether you stick out in a bad way, which includes too stylish. most of the i-bankers i deal with (i'm not a banker so take my advice only as an outside point of view) are usually dressed in business casual (button up shirt with dress slacks) or occasionally business semi-formal (a jacket sans tie or a tie without jacket). pretty much the only time i might see a full suit and tie is for a client meeting. this absolutely does not mean that you should show up in business casual but be confident that there's no need to over dress.

You can wear it, but you don't have to - good luck

Will you be in retail banking or back office analyst ?

Not much of a difference but from my experience, depending on the position, HR is slightly more lenient in how 'polished' you look if you were to be in a cubicle all day vs. a customer facing position.

Watch doesn't matter like quadcammer says, as long as it isn't loud. I used to have an old Rolex 16610 when I applied for a teller position while in college - interviewer didn't even pay attention to it.

White, blue, or light pink shirts. Keep it super simple like everyone says. Get creative AFTER you get the job. For now, just try to conform. I wear loud shit every now and then - no one cares or comes after me....but I've already got the job.

Just to elaborate on my "too polished could be held against you" comment. What we look for in analysts is very smart, very hungry kids who will run through walls for the team at 2 o'clock in the morning. Somebody who shows up in a perfectly tailored suit, hermes tie, and high end shoes screams high maintenance. These are the kinds of kids who ask "why should I" when a partner tells them to jump. For bankers (at the analyst level), the suits and ties that you wear to work are going to be beat to hell on airplanes, at hotel dry cleaners, and in the slog of 16 hour workdays. When you bring a ton of "polish" to that equation, it tells the interviewer that you don't really understand what the job is, but you have some glamorous notion of what it will be.

ok, thats a more accurate portrayal, but I wouldn't call that polish, but rather glamor.

To me polish is a suit that fits, clean cut hair, nails, shave, shined shoes, correctly fitted shirt...etc. I.e. finished properly, but not pretentious.

I think tj100 makes some good points. Also, the other thing that seems to come up a lot with these types of questions is can I wear xxx (cuff links, fancy watch, pocket square, etc). I think this should be looked at from risk/reward perspective. Usually if you have to ask "can i wear something" it means that there is some level of risk to wearing it. Maybe the risk is tiny, but the problem is that the reward is 0. Like someone mentioned above: interview conservative. Flair it up after you get the job.

You can wear anything to your interview EXCEPT Hermes ties and Patek watches, unless you're related to George Soros, Henry Kravis,etc.

There are a few things that I would really avoid:

(1) jewelry, other than a watch. No gold chains, pinky rings, school rings,etc. Really muted cufflinks (silk knots, silver monogrammed) aren't a deal killer, really gaudy ones might be.

(2) Pocket square.

(3) Any shoe better than a kenneth cole, UNLESS it's a black captoe. Black captoe is universally acceptable. Anything else, you're asking for criticism (if the criticism is that your shoes were shitty square toes, that's not a problem, if it's that they were gucci loafers, it might be).

(4) Pink shirts and or shirts with gaudy stripes. You need a pretty good reason to deviate from either white or light blue solids.

(5) A suit with more than 3 buttons. And only go 3 buttons if you don't have a 2 button model.

The hermes tie thing is not as bad as it used to be because of the rise of Vineyard Vines. With the cute animal print thing working downmarket, it actually democratized it a little bit.

Basically, I would say dress like you work for IBM in the 1960s. Dark suit, white shirt, "sincere" tie.

The final point I would make is that shabby dress is not a deal killer. If you come in having made the effort, but it's a dreadful combo of your dad's Jos. A. Bank suit (tailored for him), a kmart white shirt, and a clip-on tie, and some square-toe black shoes, our impression is that you're a hungry kid off the streets who doesn't know better. If you're smart enough, that makes you a perfect candidate.