Best suit for college student in recruiting process

[teamnsk123]

Any advice fellas?

 

[unbelragazzo]

No black suit. Navy or charcoal.

 

[Cubits]

Due to the morbid prevalence of black suits, i'd opt for the navy over the charcoal lest that be confused for black. You'll stand out whilst maintaining cultural conformity.

But at the end of the day, regardless of which option you choose, fit is king. Avoiding a baggy, gappy suit will see you in good standing, especially in a climate where interviewers are flooded with "qualified" candidates and inevitably resort to making judgement calls based on "lookism".

 

[bgp001]

Recruiting process for what? Who you're interviewing with will determine what would be the best suit for you to wear. What you'd wear to an IBD interview (Navy/grey-no pinstripes, skinny lapels, etc) would be very different from what you'd wear to a interview at a hipster Portland start-up (skinny jeans and flannel...kidding, but not really) or what you'd wear to a Big 4 interview (a clown suit and a kick me sign).

 

[archibaldleach]

Solid navy or charcoal. Good fit. No overly fashionable details (avoid super skinny lapels, etc.).

 

[VinnyMac]

Due to the morbid prevalence of black suits, i'd opt for the navy over the charcoal lest that be confused for black. You'll stand out whilst maintaining cultural conformity.

But at the end of the day, regardless of which option you choose, fit is king. Avoiding a baggy, gappy suit will see you in good standing, especially in a climate where interviewers are flooded with "qualified" candidates and inevitably resort to making judgement calls based on "lookism".

+1

/end thread

 

[lierre]

Is this grey too light?

http://us.suitsupply.com/suits/suit...pd.html?start=9&cgid=Pre_Suits&srule=PriceAsc

 

[archibaldleach]

Yes, that is too light. Medium to dark grey is what you want, and darker is better for more conservative uses.

 

[lwmarti]

One piece of advice: don't take any advice that you get here as gospel.

I've been on the other side of the interviewing process many times over the past few decades and I can't recall a single case where the color or style of the suit that someone wore mattered at all. This has included financial consulting, Big 4 consulting, and others. So following the standard advice will never get you in trouble, not following it will also probably not get you in trouble. They're hiring you, not your suit.

Particularly in places where different cultures mix. I work in Silicon Valley, where we have lots of people from China, Russia, India, etc. Some are even native-born Americans, although not really that many.

In an environment like that, business attire typically isn't as people on this forum would like it to be, which has a strong bias towards traditional Anglo-American style. (I personally dress that way, but I'm in a definite minority out here.) The Russians may have a good understanding of what passes for suitable business attire back home, and that's very different from what's generally accepted in Japan, etc. So it really seems that all suits are pretty much equal these days, and wearing something out of the ordinary will almost always just be written off as some aspect of the other guy's culture that you're not quite familliar with.

 

[archibaldleach]



So following the standard advice will never get you in trouble, not following it will also probably not get you in trouble.

This alone proves exactly why he should dress in a conservative manner per "standard advice." I'd take "never" getting into trouble over "probably not" getting into trouble any day of the week. In all fairness, you'll also see company published interview recommendations suggesting the conservative approach and there are some interviewers out there who will make these judgments (especially for any client facing job). It's great that you don't care about these things when you deal with candidates, but he's not interviewing with you, and playing it safe is far smarter than the opposite when you don't know who your interviewer is.

 

[lwmarti]

This alone proves exactly why he should dress in a conservative manner per "standard advice." I'd take "never" getting into trouble over "probably not" getting into trouble any day of the week. In all fairness, you'll also see company published interview recommendations suggesting the conservative approach and there are some interviewers out there who will make these judgments (especially for any client facing job). It's great that you don't care about these things when you deal with candidates, but he's not interviewing with you, and playing it safe is far smarter than the opposite when you don't know who your interviewer is.

There must be others here who have lots of experience inside the interviewing process. Has anyone even heard of a case where an otherwise-good candidate wasn't considered because of the way that he dressed? I'm not trying to be annoying by asking this. I'm genuinely interested. I've actually never even heard of a case where this has happened. And if you know of a case, how bizarre was the style of dress that got the person blackballed?

I actually see this as a case of market forces at work. If you make a decision based on what someone's wearing, in almost all cases you're probably making a bad decision, and you'll end up losing to competitors who don't have that bias. So although I don't think it's true, I certainly hope that our competitors deeply and passionately care about what color and style of suit people wear to interviews with them.

 

[unbelragazzo]

I'd be pretty surprised if anyone consciously thought, "he was a great candidate, but...his suit didn't fit at all, so no." But I think being appropriately dressed in a well-fitting suit adds to an overall impression of competence, respectfulness, and attention to detail. I would guess that if you did a randomized experiment where you had a candidate go into 1/2 his interviews in a poorly chosen, ill-fitting outfit, and the other 1/2 in proper interview attire, he'd get more callbacks from the second 1/2. Maybe not a big effect, but I would guess it's there.

 

[bgp001]

There must be others here who have lots of experience inside the interviewing process. Has anyone even heard of a case where an otherwise-good candidate wasn't considered because of the way that he dressed? I'm not trying to be annoying by asking this. I'm genuinely interested. I've actually never even heard of a case where this has happened. And if you know of a case, how bizarre was the style of dress that got the person blackballed?

I actually see this as a case of market forces at work. If you make a decision based on what someone's wearing, in almost all cases you're probably making a bad decision, and you'll end up losing to competitors who don't have that bias. So although I don't think it's true, I certainly hope that our competitors deeply and passionately care about what color and style of suit people wear to interviews with them.

I knew a kid who interviewed with E&Y wearing a tan suit and black patent leather bluchers. He still got an offer. It depends on how desperate (read terrible) your industry is. If your competition is Tier 1, 4.0 GPA, saving kids in Africa in their spare time, you need to do everything you can to make a positive impression. And that includes not dressing like a numpty.

 

[archibaldleach]



There must be others here who have lots of experience inside the interviewing process. Has anyone even heard of a case where an otherwise-good candidate wasn't considered because of the way that he dressed? I'm not trying to be annoying by asking this. I'm genuinely interested. I've actually never even heard of a case where this has happened. And if you know of a case, how bizarre was the style of dress that got the person blackballed?

I actually see this as a case of market forces at work. If you make a decision based on what someone's wearing, in almost all cases you're probably making a bad decision, and you'll end up losing to competitors who don't have that bias. So although I don't think it's true, I certainly hope that our competitors deeply and passionately care about what color and style of suit people wear to interviews with them.

I don't think it's usually this extreme or this conscious, but let's say you do screening interviews with 20 people (out of 100+ resumes) and invite 8 of those people for callbacks for 3 open positions. There's a good chance that there will be more than 3 candidates called back (say 4-5) who are good choices for the job. Small details that one may or may not be conscious of can come into play here, including attire, and I've seen it happen. For me, if I had two equal candidates, I'd consider attire even if it wasn't the deciding factor. Once you have a list of people who you'd be happy with, you can afford to make decisions like that (if there's no clear 3rd or 4th best candidate, you lose nothing by thinking about something relating to attire). I'd agree that it's usually something major that would get someone blackballed or passed over, but why take the chance when there's a safe route that will never get you into trouble.

I'd be pretty surprised if anyone consciously thought, "he was a great candidate, but...his suit didn't fit at all, so no." But I think being appropriately dressed in a well-fitting suit adds to an overall impression of competence, respectfulness, and attention to detail. I would guess that if you did a randomized experiment where you had a candidate go into 1/2 his interviews in a poorly chosen, ill-fitting outfit, and the other 1/2 in proper interview attire, he'd get more callbacks from the second 1/2. Maybe not a big effect, but I would guess it's there.

+1.

 

[unbelragazzo]

One of my friends from grad school made the very #menswear mistake of not wearing socks to an interview. He had to listen to the other guy grill him about it for 10 minutes.