Many companies have gone casual dress these days and it’s difficult to know just how to dress for an interview. I just had lunch with a former public company CEO who visited the senior management team of a company he’s recently interviewed with for a CEO spot, and found everyone to be business casual. He was dressed to the nines with his best suit, great shirt, and great power tie (remember that line?). Immediately he felt over dressed and said to the assembled masses, “If you all don’t mind, I’d like to shed the tie and get comfortable with everyone,” at which they all said please do and he was one of the team. The point though, is that he knows how to dress and I’m sure they felt confident he can do the part in representing them to investors and analysts. And, while he dressed down by losing the tie, he still looked like a million bucks. This is a simple thing to do if you don’t know what a company hiring manager expects of your dress in your first interview. While I know I’ll probably hear a few comments about this, my feeling has always been to overdress with a company interview, and you can always say something about it so they know you can don the khakis and golf shirts just like everyone else. I have heard from hiring execs that even though their company is casual, they were put off by the candidate coming in for an interview dressed casually, at least for the first interview.

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