Comment by peterangular | Hacker News Reader

Comment by peterangular | Hacker News Reader

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I'm slightly more conservative - I've had people show up in t-shirt and jeans and have turned them away because I feel like they're breaking the social contract of what an interview is. Like - totally clean/non-offensive t-shirt and jeans.

In a lot of my engineering roles I have had to be internal/external facing and do things like budget presentations, work with partners, etc. Before that, I was a general web/app dev and we would get pulled along to client meetings all the time to collect spec, ensure that it was a good sales fit, etc. I'm not saying I had to be fully decked-out but being able to throw on a button down and tuck it in means that you "fit-in" to these situations.

For me, if someone is showing up in a t-shirt and jeans it's a red flag that you can't be bothered to dress semi-professionally which has been an occasional (but hard) requirement of me since day-1 of my career. 100% this all is anecdotal, and specific to my own needs/experiences.

I think this is fair to both sides. I dress casually for interviews not only because that is what I prefer to wear but also in hopes of getting rejected by anybody who would consider that a red flag.

Yep. And that's better for both parties involved. Just don't be offended when I turn you away at the door to not waste either of our time.

This is in fact the advantage of having a widely-understood dress code for things such as interviews: that way no one has to play guessing games, you just show up as expected and it's one less thing to think about.

Unfortunately, our industry has no such thing, so I always ask before an interview. So far the answer is always "uh, we just wear normal clothes", "casual is fine" or once "just wear clothes, please, this isn't quite Burning Man" (ended up working at the last place), but: this was in the Bay Area, so YMMV.

I would expect it to depend upon the company.

Dress code doesn't really factor for me, but I've worked for the same place for a while now and we've always been 95% remote. Half of us just wear whatever we slept in the night before. Most people don't get dressed until lunch time. Even in the office it doesn't get much fancier than a t-shirt and jeans. I guess our tech lead wears a button down shirt, but his jeans usually have giant holes in them, so I would call that a wash.

Expecting an interview candidate to wear something nice would feel a bit hypocritical.

Ha, you "went ape" when someone saw as negative wearing a suit and you're doing the same in reverse. Bradley speaking, if you go to interview for lawyer position you wear suit, if you go to interview for developer position you don't wear a suit.

> you can't be bothered to dress semi-professionally

It seems to me that you're making an assumption about what is considered professional dress. I feel like it's fine to have such expectations, but you should express them clearly in the invitation to interview. It's not a case of "not bothering" if you have never expressed that preference in the first place.

I think nowadays it would be fair to tell applicants what is expected for an interview in regards to dress. I've been judged for underdressing and for overdressing. Just can't win and it's unfair to expect someone to read your mind.

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