Comments on: Interview

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:02:00 +0000

Also RE: apparel. My company has recently been hiring QA folks and one of the candidates wore a suit to the interview. Now it didn’t necessarily land him the job on its own, but at that point he stood out from the pack (“you know, the one who wore the suit.”) and that isn’t a bad thing.

By: Ian Schreiber

Ian Schreiber — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:58:00 +0000

Johannes (and anyone else who might be wondering): The advice I give is to ask ahead of time. When HR calls you to schedule an interview, casually ask how they prefer candidates to dress. It varies from company to company, and the question comes up often enough that no one would think less of you for asking.

(If you're so in shock when they call that you forget to ask, you can always call back later.)

If you fall into a coma and wake up half an hour before your job interview so that you can't ask... well, the answer you get varies, but I say go with the suit and then joke about it ("enjoy it while you can, folks, this is the last time you'll see me wearing one of these unless I have a funeral or court appearance").

If it helps, in my experience the candidate gets hired more on their merit (perceived or actual) and less on how they did or didn't dress. So don't worry so much about whether your tie was too wide, worry more about showing them how awesome you'd be at making games :)

By: johannes k

johannes k — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:55:00 +0000

hehe, so for my current job I wore a suit, which was maybe a little bit to much, so this time I toned it down a tiny bit. One thing that I think was funny was watching new hires starting in shirts and then slowly but surely progressing to t-shirts :-)

By: Eric Doty

Eric Doty — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:41:00 +0000

My two cents on interview apparel...

It really depends on the company and their own work environment, but even if they work in torn jeans and a t-shirt you should show up in business casual. It shows you are respectful and not a slob. You're not going to look too uptight in a button up shirt/polo and khakis. Once you get the job then you can break out the t-shirts and jeans.

By: Johannes K

Johannes K — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:32:00 +0000

Ok this is also related to interviews, but more related to job interviews and maybe to writing cover letters. I’ve been job hunting recently, and doing so I always thought this topic would be a great idea for a new post, Darius. So: How casual can or should someone be who’s searching for a job. I think once you got the job the work environments are pretty casual, but does that mean that I should job hunt in a t-shirt? Or should I wear a suit? How casual should cover letters be? Does it matter? What do you think about it?

By: David Sahlin

David Sahlin — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:20:00 +0000

For what it’s worth, I send people here very often. Yeah, I could tell them the basics, but you present it so well that it makes it easy on everyone in the end.