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Secrets to Dressing for Job Interview Success

Of all the steps required to have a great job interview, dressing for the job interview is by far the easiest. To answer the questions correctly you have to do a whole range of actions, starting with researching the position and ending with practicing your answers in front of a video camera. By contrast, dressing for the job interview only requires that you purchase the right job interview outfit and wear the right job interview outfit on the interview day. Both of these steps are easy, compared to all the other requirements of job searching.

For men, purchasing the right clothes for dressing for job interview simply means going to a departments store, tailor or clothing store and asking to see the interview suits. These suits are basically the more conservative and professional looking suits in a man's wardrobe. They are typically either navy blue or charcoal grey, have a conservative cut and pattern and look more ore less like every other suit that anyone will be wearing in the building that day. For women, it's a bit more complex. There is no cut-and-dried interview suit that women universally wear, but they do tend to go for a pantsuit or jacket and skirt combination that is also conservatively colored and cut.

More Dressing for Job Interview Success Secrets

For both men and women, dressing for job interview success does not simply mean purchasing the right outfit. Just as important as the suit element of the job interview dressing is the accessories and other accoutrements that accompany it. As a general rule, the point of a job interview suit is to be as conservative, bland and unthreatening as possible. Sure, you want to look good when you go into there, but more to the point you don't want to look bad, as defined by the interviewers that you will see. For that reason, colorful accessories and jewelry art to be avoided by both sexes, as is any sort of hairstyle which calls excessive attention to itself. Shoes, belts, purses and briefcases should also be plain, professional and scrupulously well maintained.

The one exception to these dressing for job interview rules is to be found in more creative fields. For jobs in the advertising, fashion and publishing field for instance, standard dress may be significantly different. In these jobs, showing up in an interview suit would be just as big a faux pas as showing up for an investment-banking job dressed in a pair of jeans. The concept is the same, however. In both kinds of companies, the object is to show that you belong in the organization and that you are willing and able to fit into the way that the people there work and look. If you aren't' sure what kind of dress code your next interview wears, either go there ahead of time and investigate the office dress code or simply ask the HR person who helped you set up your interview.

Keyword: dressing for job interview