I have a fair amount of self-confidence, but always fretted over interview wear. I usually wore black jeans or black slacks with a non-matching sport coat of some kind, shirt and tie. I never wore a suit because it just screamed - THIS IS NOT ME AT ALL...
I'm in a bit of a rumpled discipline, so it was no big deal.
And I'm so amazingly handsome, what I wore scarcely mattered.
I am wondering this too. I am still a junior faculty member but am clearly no longer a graduate student. The whole suit thing does make me feel a bit like I'm playing dress-up. Like I'm a graduate student still trying desperately to impress. So I would like to show up to a (potenital) interview wearing professional clothes....but not the full suit thing. Would that be acceptable? Or would it look like I'm blowing off the interview?
Well, apparently for interviewERS, it's track suit. A full-on Sue Sylvester track suit. Talk about screaming "You are not the candidate we have decided to take seriously." I shouldn't have bothered to go through the rest of the day.
Another moment where I roll my eyes at academics. I own a lovely suit (with a skirt). It's cute (obviously-- I am Cute Cleo). It fits well. It did not break the bank. Strangers in the elevator thought it looked nice enough to comment on. It is a perfect interview suit for EVERY OTHER PROFESSIONAL PROFESSION ON EARTH! That anyone would even begin to think "That person is trying too hard" or "I can't determine their personality because of their clothes." is a really, really sad commentary on our "profession."
And really... a track suit? I don't think I'll ever get over it.
The uniform for women is much as you describe for both early January clusterfucks. Mrs Archie, who goes to the other clusterfuck, has a closet full of pantsuits in a variety of dark colors. She wore these as a job seeker. She wears them now as a tenured mid-career person. I think for her they are a kind of professional armor that says "don't fuck with me" to students and colleagues alike.
I'm a suit and tie kind of guy myself. And it isn't out of desperation. I actually enjoy wearing them, and I find it convenient for some of the same reasons as Mrs. Archie.
What always pissed me off as an applicant was going into the hotel room for my interview dressed in by best Italian finery and being greeted by people dressed as slobs. It is a baldfaced power move on these assholes' part. They know that the applicants will be in their convention clothes, so they dress like they are headed to the gym just to show that they can. Once I was interviewed by a guy at least eight or nine years my junior wearing torn jeans and a t-shirt. Because I had looked at the website to find out who the committee members were, I had found out that he had been hired ABD the year before and hadn't even defended his dissertation yet. Long story short, my interview went badly, so when I ran into him in the elevator later on, I had no problem saying, "you know junior, you might want to actually get your PhD before you decide to ditch the tie altogether."
So my position is, the applicants have to dress the part. Therefore, the committee members should too.
Many of my female colleagues dress pretty well, I feel, but some from other disciplines dress basically like sluts.
The thing NOT to do on campus, EVER, is to dress like a student, or even similar to a student. On the days when I stop in to check my mail and I wear my jeans, I get worried that students will think I'm just a non-traditional student. On the other hand, I don't want to wear my work clothes every damn time I happen by campus.
I work at a school that requires business professional every day. I have a wide range of appropriate attire, some of it more fun than the rest.
I've been told to stick with black, but some of my favorite stuff that looks the best, is most comfortable, and is still uber professional is not black. The convention is over several days (and then there's campus visits) so I suppose I can report back on what worked best....
...but honestly? If you judge me as an unsuitable candidate because I didn't wear the same black suit three days in a row... um? Fantastic. Take Smelly McSmellerson instead. :) I've already worked in judgmental hell, I don't want to get stuck in it again. I also have a number of cute but professional dresses to wear out for cocktails at night.
I have a black tone on tone stripe suit that I love and makes for instant "professional." I even wear pearls with it, talk about the uber-cliche.
At conferences I don't always assume that the people in suits are going to interviews, a lot of them are going to be giving papers. I wear my suit to give papers.
Being at a tiny SLAC I break out the suit for meetings with potential donors as well. Since this was on a regular class day, a number of my students complimented me on how nice I looked (it helped that I previously had joked with them that I had to "dress like a grown up professor" that day).
In my day to day work, I dress like a "dressed up student" some days: Jeans, boots, sweater. I don't worry if anyone takes me as a student. They'll figure it out pretty quick when they notice I'm the one standing in front of the class.
I dress for the office. I wear flattering clothes for my body type but I don't go all out. My conference wear is the same as my teaching wear. Pants, blouse, subdued jewelry. Neutral colors. No heels, but elevated flats.
As a grad student, I was always punished on evals for "dressing like an undergrad" regardless of what I wore. So I upgraded to "office wear" and never looked back. It isn't the most comfortable, but it helps me carry myself like a professional, and I feel a transformation as I get dressed. I don't see myself changing too radically in the next 10 years, either.
Could some more of the guys give us their insight? Maybe we really do have a feminine vibe going? Not with all that NFL bullshit from earlier, though, I'd think. (Although I do like the Browns...)
MLA 2011 will be in Los Angelese (as Bugs Bunny would put it) and so you can dress any way you like because the temperature will be So-Cal 70-something, not the 30-50 "snow on the ground" BS of Philadelphia. Dress like a pimp, dress like a slob; LA doesn't care.
Oh dear, I dress poorly all the time, so when I do conference presentations I always wear my one 'good' suit. It's black. White shirt. Black tie. Undertaker or Agent K, can't say for sure.
I, too, would like to hear from more men. Or from women who have interviewed them.
This semester, I was on three hiring committees. I judged the interviewees primarily on what they said and how they behaved (oh, and all that C.V. stuff). I did not notice what kinds of shoes any of them were wearing. I was not impressed by the interviewees who were handsome/beautiful.
I've interviewed male candidates for CC jobs but not at conferences. I've noticed their clothing only when it's food-stained or way too casual (T-shirt and jeans). Otherwise, it was all about that stuff Bubba said.
As an interviewee, I will never again wear "professional" shoes instead of comfortable ones. Arrggh, the blisters did me no favors!
I don't see how the city or season matters that much, since the interviewers will also be traveling there, and since interviews are held in vast, windowless hotel interiors. In my experience, sessions at the same conference can vary from nose-running frost to sleep-inducing warmth.
So -- dress in professional layers. Better to be too warm, and take the jacket off when needed, than too cold, and shiver during the interview. Stash in briefcase or purse plenty of tissues for the cold rooms and a tiny deodorant for a washroom touchup after the warm ones. An attractive, thin, soft scarf acts as a fashionable turtleneck layer and can be stashed when not needed (probably not advice for men).
Who cares about clothes. Look at the sad numbers over there in the poll question. This site CLAIMS they have 800,000 hits, yet that poll in the side bar shows about 20 people.
I used to enjoy poking you people because you're all so high and mighty. Now it's not even fun. There are bigger groups lined up to get Black Swan tickets across the street from my apt than there are on this whole site. Not even worth poking anymore.
All the job seekers at our conference wear grey suits, grey skin, and a worried expression. It is the most depressing collection of unhappy people you can imagine (well, perhaps all the 'job conferences' are the same, I don't know). My advice to anyone is, please, male or female, NOT GREY. Wear something that makes you feel cheerful.
When I'm on a search committee, I tend to warm up quickly to people who have at least some dazzling item...for me, a very bold or even goofy tie. For women, a scarf of any material red, orange, something that stands out.
I've actually said, "What about that guy with the Santa tie?"
@Tim (Not Jim) -- Can you please get me a Black Swan ticket? Thanks.
Funniest personal interview experience: I have very short hair. Because of my particular (tall & lumpy) body shape, I wear suits with skirts rather than pants. In the winter, I often wear knee-high black boots with this ensemble. I went to an interview with my hair gelled into what my chair calls "the aggressive professional" style, this outfit, and very simple makeup. And bright, bright, red lipstick.
My interviewer was a man with a HUGE (but very well-groomed) white beard, a pair of jeans, and a chambray workshirt. He also had on a pair of black motorcycle boots and a black leather vest with fringe. Had I seen him anywhere other than our interview room, I would immediately have taken him to be a leather daddy.
We had our interview and then he started telling me about the city where the school was located, a city I'd spent a fair bit of time in. He noted the "huge queer scene" in the city, and began talking about the leather scene in particular and suggesting that it would be a draw to the school.
Yep. The leather daddy and the femme, right there in the interview room. I was absolutely devestated with the school cut the hiring line before they'd filled the position, but also secretly relieved that I wasn't about to be outed for not -actually- participating in the Life, but apparently dressing as though I did.
In the social sciences, a major quandry is the Ethnic Jewelry. I have a crap-ton of ethnic jewelry and I do NOT wear it to interviews because I think it's a lot of ridiculous posturing. Frankly, the absence of Ethnic Jewelry and the presence of my formidable 5' 8" frame in a pair of 3" heels is usually enough to set me apart from my stick-insect peers.
re: The Men. I'm going to be blunt here. One of my ass-hat colleagues applied to a SLAC this year. He got an interview (ironically despite his abysmal performance & lack of experience as a teacher.) He was planning on wearing a pair of RIPPED JEANS, a dress shirt, and a corduroy jacket with elbow patches.
"What do you think" he asked me. "Well, you'll probably stand out" was about all I could muster.
*Ass-hat colleague and I have had an ongoing battle after he plagiarized some of my work, so maybe I am a bit overly critical of him...
Tim (Not Jim), hon, this isn't a crowd that ever cared about being popular.
Clothes. In my discipline, the hungry grad student/upcoming theory star look is the skinny pantsuit/aggressive hair thing, on both men and women. The tenured and tired look, for women, is generally more drapey. Think Eileen Fisher.
BlackDog, I almost lost a queer studies job to a straight girl who looked more po-mo dyke than I did, for that very reason (the gay man on the committee later told me he mistook the straight candidate in the lipstick/short hair/boots for the real dyke. I, the vulgar homosexual, sported the Goodwill look after years of starvation on the adjunct tract). Needless to say I'm not impressed by hot outfits on job candidates. All they say to me is: trust fund, somewhere.
I think some of you seem to be mistaking "professional" for "trust fund" or "handsome/beautiful." (I suspect you may be thinking "conformist" too. Give me a break. It's a matter of simple professional respect.)
Every grown-up should have a suit for interviews and funerals. My husband had to go out and buy two for non-academic interviews even though we were both living on a single assistantship at the time. Sure it was our clothing budget for the year. But it's part of the deal of being a grown-up. (Especially for mid-careers!) Not a big deal.
I generally think of you guys as pretty common sense, but here I am floored.
One of the funniest conversations I’ve ever had with my former advisor was on the subject of what to wear for interviews. Advisor: Tall, skinny, >60, awkward bordering on Asperger’s. Me: Short, petite, and owning a set of curves that are best hidden under a gunny sack in all professional situations. He just kept telling me that I should avoid belts or anything that accentuated my middle. I must have looked slightly confused, because the poor man finally gave up and said “just hide your secondary sexual characteristics at all costs.”
I now own one brown tweed suit that is two sizes too large. It has never failed me and is the frumpiest thing on the planet. Sigh…
On the other hand, the best advice I have ever received was to just not wear anything distracting. Presumably, you want the committee to focus on what is coming out of your mouth, and anything that takes away from that is bad. It could be something as simple as that the committee can’t focus on you because of your huge dangly earrings, or the squeaky sound your shoes make. That advice helped me more than anything else.
@Cute Cleo: I actually wish there were a style of suit -- or any other ensemble -- one could wear to an interview in my discipline and be read simply as "professional." If there were, I'd buy it and wear it (assuming I could find it in my size; like BlackDog, I'm lumpy, but not, sadly, tall; "dumpy" is probably a pretty apt description). But the comments above confirm my observations among my colleagues: there's a whole system of clothing-based signification going on, with no neutral ground in sight. I'm glad to know that at least some interviewers ignore it, but it's there nevertheless.
Nope, not mistaking professional for trust fund. Professional is a dark suit from Banana Republic, if you happen to be skinny. Trust fund is a Prada suit.
Handsome/beautiful is neither here nor there. For women, being stunningly beautiful can be a handicap, not that that's been my problem.
But I get annoyed by these conversations shaming people for not dressing well enough. I've only recently begun to be able to afford decent clothes, and my career has been just fine, thanks. Turns out it's more important to publish well than to dress well.
I long for the return of academic robes, personally. No individuality, but no judgement, and no decisions to make before teaching or interviewing. Sigh.
Failing that, the dark suit, shirt and tie for men, or dark suit, shirt, blouse, or dressy turtleneck for women seems to be the standard uniform. And despite ELS's fetish for santa ties, I wouldn't advise standing out by virtue of your clothing. Banana Republic -- perfect. Boring is good. I was at an interview once where the interviewee wore a skirt, a blouse with a peter pan collar, and a headband. All items separately seemed neutral; together, disastrous. Noone wants to hire a 30-year-old who thinks she's Alice in Wonderland. She was bright, and probably completely oblivious to the effect. Ask someone, or several someones -- neutral and trusted colleagues or grad student friends -- to assess your interview outfit, and take their advice. Don't get defensive and think: 'but this is who I am!' Rubbish. Who you are is what comes out of your mouth. (Ok, yes, that's simplistic and bodies do matter, la la la Butler la, but just let's operate as if it's true for this particular purpose.) Uniforms aren't necessarily oppressive.
"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
- Oliver Cromwell, dismissing the Rump Parliament. For you, this is particularly appropriate.
@Clothes:
Astronomers are notoriously badly dressed. While observing, they tend to dress like field geologists, in flannel "lumberjack" shirts and jeans, but with less sturdy shoes such as running shoes, not that they ever do much running, as opposed to heavy-duty hiking boots. They invariably have flashlights in their pockets: white for professionals, red for amateurs. Since I do a lot of pro-am collaboration, I have both.
While serving as chair of a NASA review panel, to allocate funding or telescope time, one is required to wear a suit and tie. Failing to do so can get one "spoken to" dourly. I believe NSF has similar rules, although I've never served as a chair for them.
At conferences, dress is pretty casual. The older generation still wears jackets and ties, but anyone under 50 generally doesn't. Even with the older generation, though, expensive, designer clothes would look odd, not that anyone has them. When I was a graduate student in the early '90s, the uniform was corduroys, dress shirts, and sweaters, usually Earth colors, from L.L.Bean, Eddie Bauer, The Gap, or someplace similar. Things appear not to have changed much since then. One does see a fair number of students dressed like hippies or punk rockers, but almost never while interviewing. Interviewees are almost always in jackets and ties, or even suits and ties, with tats covered, piercings removed (except for one pair of earrings through the earlobes, on women), and hair a natural color. The only person I’ve ever seen not wear a tie during a job talk didn’t get the job. Women astronomers generally follow similar rules, although I observe they dress better than men, but then that isn't difficult.
While teaching, I dress in "business casual," meaning polo or dress shits and chinos. No one in my relatively young physics department wears a tie to class. It would look odd if anyone did, much like addressing students as "Mr." or "Miss."
I've been on many hiring committees and I've helped hire many different men and women, and I don't really remember what people wore, nor do I remember what I did.
So I would guess that the "don't be too distracting" and "don't advertise your gender" advice is the best. You are absolutely NOT trying to attract the opposite sex, and if there's even a whiff that you are, it won't sit well. Dress like you're going out to a nice dinner with your grandmother. No ripped jeans. No sneakers. I think a nice dress is perfectly appropriate for a woman. A sport coat ensemble is perfectly appropriate for a man. Probably best to wear a tie because most other guys will be.
But honestly I don't know that any of my colleagues, past and present, would even notice a "good" suit from a bad one. I'm trying to think of one incident where "looks" factored in. I can't. You want to create an image where the last thing people think about is...your image.
I generally don't notice too much about what people are wearing, with one exception: if they're dressed too casually, I think they really don't want the job. Seriously. I've noticed a decided correlation between "no jacket / tie / nice sweater over a shirt" (you must have at least one of these three) and phoning in the interview. Men who show up only in shirtsleeves invariably turn out not to have done their research about our department/programme/university, because frankly they weren't really planning to come.
Note for men: to avoid giving off the "I'm not serious about your institution" vibe, you can skip any two of the jacket/tie/nice sweater over a shirt, but not all three. You cannot wear only a sweater, or only a shirt. Check shirts are particularly lethal.
Cass nails it re: robes. I would be psyched to not only wear them to my job interviews but also to teach in. It would solve many quandries.
Stella's point is also well-taken and one I have heard before: nothing distracting.
Marcia: The leather daddy incident occurred during my first year on the market and I'd gotten a "sudden call-up" interview, where they ring you at the conference and say "Hey, come by our interview hovel in the bowels of the hotel!" So, I was wearing what I would normally wear for the conference...hence the lipstick and perhaps aggressive hairdo missteps. I was actually applying for a job related to my work in Starvistan, which made the whole thing even more surreal.
One more thought...as a misshapen woman, my best friend is a relatively inexpensive tailor and Jones New York outlet stores. I honestly think that simply knowing I look well-put-together helps my confidence immensely.
Oh, no, BlackDog not missteps, especially not if you're misshapen. Just, you know, gay men don't really have good gaydar for lesbians. They just think they do. And the inner glow from being put together: priceless.
I have a fair amount of self-confidence, but always fretted over interview wear. I usually wore black jeans or black slacks with a non-matching sport coat of some kind, shirt and tie. I never wore a suit because it just screamed - THIS IS NOT ME AT ALL...
ReplyDeleteI'm in a bit of a rumpled discipline, so it was no big deal.
And I'm so amazingly handsome, what I wore scarcely mattered.
I am wondering this too. I am still a junior faculty member but am clearly no longer a graduate student. The whole suit thing does make me feel a bit like I'm playing dress-up. Like I'm a graduate student still trying desperately to impress. So I would like to show up to a (potenital) interview wearing professional clothes....but not the full suit thing. Would that be acceptable? Or would it look like I'm blowing off the interview?
ReplyDeleteWell, apparently for interviewERS, it's track suit. A full-on Sue Sylvester track suit. Talk about screaming "You are not the candidate we have decided to take seriously." I shouldn't have bothered to go through the rest of the day.
ReplyDeleteAnother moment where I roll my eyes at academics. I own a lovely suit (with a skirt). It's cute (obviously-- I am Cute Cleo). It fits well. It did not break the bank. Strangers in the elevator thought it looked nice enough to comment on. It is a perfect interview suit for EVERY OTHER PROFESSIONAL PROFESSION ON EARTH! That anyone would even begin to think "That person is trying too hard" or "I can't determine their personality because of their clothes." is a really, really sad commentary on our "profession."
And really... a track suit? I don't think I'll ever get over it.
Track suit? Juicy Couture or really Adidas or likewise.
ReplyDeleteI like to comfortable, God knows... but maybe not all the way.
The uniform for women is much as you describe for both early January clusterfucks. Mrs Archie, who goes to the other clusterfuck, has a closet full of pantsuits in a variety of dark colors. She wore these as a job seeker. She wears them now as a tenured mid-career person. I think for her they are a kind of professional armor that says "don't fuck with me" to students and colleagues alike.
ReplyDeleteI'm a suit and tie kind of guy myself. And it isn't out of desperation. I actually enjoy wearing them, and I find it convenient for some of the same reasons as Mrs. Archie.
What always pissed me off as an applicant was going into the hotel room for my interview dressed in by best Italian finery and being greeted by people dressed as slobs. It is a baldfaced power move on these assholes' part. They know that the applicants will be in their convention clothes, so they dress like they are headed to the gym just to show that they can. Once I was interviewed by a guy at least eight or nine years my junior wearing torn jeans and a t-shirt. Because I had looked at the website to find out who the committee members were, I had found out that he had been hired ABD the year before and hadn't even defended his dissertation yet. Long story short, my interview went badly, so when I ran into him in the elevator later on, I had no problem saying, "you know junior, you might want to actually get your PhD before you decide to ditch the tie altogether."
So my position is, the applicants have to dress the part. Therefore, the committee members should too.
Many of my female colleagues dress pretty well, I feel, but some from other disciplines dress basically like sluts.
ReplyDeleteThe thing NOT to do on campus, EVER, is to dress like a student, or even similar to a student. On the days when I stop in to check my mail and I wear my jeans, I get worried that students will think I'm just a non-traditional student. On the other hand, I don't want to wear my work clothes every damn time I happen by campus.
I work at a school that requires business professional every day. I have a wide range of appropriate attire, some of it more fun than the rest.
ReplyDeleteI've been told to stick with black, but some of my favorite stuff that looks the best, is most comfortable, and is still uber professional is not black. The convention is over several days (and then there's campus visits) so I suppose I can report back on what worked best....
...but honestly? If you judge me as an unsuitable candidate because I didn't wear the same black suit three days in a row... um? Fantastic. Take Smelly McSmellerson instead. :) I've already worked in judgmental hell, I don't want to get stuck in it again. I also have a number of cute but professional dresses to wear out for cocktails at night.
I have a black tone on tone stripe suit that I love and makes for instant "professional." I even wear pearls with it, talk about the uber-cliche.
ReplyDeleteAt conferences I don't always assume that the people in suits are going to interviews, a lot of them are going to be giving papers. I wear my suit to give papers.
Being at a tiny SLAC I break out the suit for meetings with potential donors as well. Since this was on a regular class day, a number of my students complimented me on how nice I looked (it helped that I previously had joked with them that I had to "dress like a grown up professor" that day).
In my day to day work, I dress like a "dressed up student" some days: Jeans, boots, sweater. I don't worry if anyone takes me as a student. They'll figure it out pretty quick when they notice I'm the one standing in front of the class.
OMG, you aren't the one and only Historiann, are you? I love your blog...
ReplyDeleteI dress for the office. I wear flattering clothes for my body type but I don't go all out. My conference wear is the same as my teaching wear. Pants, blouse, subdued jewelry. Neutral colors. No heels, but elevated flats.
ReplyDeleteAs a grad student, I was always punished on evals for "dressing like an undergrad" regardless of what I wore. So I upgraded to "office wear" and never looked back. It isn't the most comfortable, but it helps me carry myself like a professional, and I feel a transformation as I get dressed. I don't see myself changing too radically in the next 10 years, either.
@Eating Low Salt: I'm afraid I can only wish I were so well known/funny/well spoken
ReplyDeleteCould some more of the guys give us their insight? Maybe we really do have a feminine vibe going? Not with all that NFL bullshit from earlier, though, I'd think. (Although I do like the Browns...)
ReplyDeleteMLA 2011 will be in Los Angelese (as Bugs Bunny would put it) and so you can dress any way you like because the temperature will be So-Cal 70-something, not the 30-50 "snow on the ground" BS of Philadelphia. Dress like a pimp, dress like a slob; LA doesn't care.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, I dress poorly all the time, so when I do conference presentations I always wear my one 'good' suit. It's black. White shirt. Black tie. Undertaker or Agent K, can't say for sure.
ReplyDeleteI, too, would like to hear from more men. Or from women who have interviewed them.
ReplyDeleteThis semester, I was on three hiring committees. I judged the interviewees primarily on what they said and how they behaved (oh, and all that C.V. stuff). I did not notice what kinds of shoes any of them were wearing. I was not impressed by the interviewees who were handsome/beautiful.
I've interviewed male candidates for CC jobs but not at conferences. I've noticed their clothing only when it's food-stained or way too casual (T-shirt and jeans). Otherwise, it was all about that stuff Bubba said.
ReplyDeleteAs an interviewee, I will never again wear "professional" shoes instead of comfortable ones. Arrggh, the blisters did me no favors!
I don't see how the city or season matters that much, since the interviewers will also be traveling there, and since interviews are held in vast, windowless hotel interiors. In my experience, sessions at the same conference can vary from nose-running frost to sleep-inducing warmth.
So -- dress in professional layers. Better to be too warm, and take the jacket off when needed, than too cold, and shiver during the interview. Stash in briefcase or purse plenty of tissues for the cold rooms and a tiny deodorant for a washroom touchup after the warm ones. An attractive, thin, soft scarf acts as a fashionable turtleneck layer and can be stashed when not needed (probably not advice for men).
Who cares about clothes. Look at the sad numbers over there in the poll question. This site CLAIMS they have 800,000 hits, yet that poll in the side bar shows about 20 people.
ReplyDeleteI used to enjoy poking you people because you're all so high and mighty. Now it's not even fun. There are bigger groups lined up to get Black Swan tickets across the street from my apt than there are on this whole site. Not even worth poking anymore.
@ Eskarina
ReplyDeleteThe city and the season matters because if the weather is nice you can go out for breathers.
Men could wear a "thin soft scarf" but it would have to be as an ascot.
All the job seekers at our conference wear grey suits, grey skin, and a worried expression. It is the most depressing collection of unhappy people you can imagine (well, perhaps all the 'job conferences' are the same, I don't know). My advice to anyone is, please, male or female, NOT GREY. Wear something that makes you feel cheerful.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm on a search committee, I tend to warm up quickly to people who have at least some dazzling item...for me, a very bold or even goofy tie. For women, a scarf of any material red, orange, something that stands out.
ReplyDeleteI've actually said, "What about that guy with the Santa tie?"
Seriously.
@Tim (Not Jim) -- Can you please get me a Black Swan ticket? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteFunniest personal interview experience: I have very short hair. Because of my particular (tall & lumpy) body shape, I wear suits with skirts rather than pants. In the winter, I often wear knee-high black boots with this ensemble. I went to an interview with my hair gelled into what my chair calls "the aggressive professional" style, this outfit, and very simple makeup. And bright, bright, red lipstick.
My interviewer was a man with a HUGE (but very well-groomed) white beard, a pair of jeans, and a chambray workshirt. He also had on a pair of black motorcycle boots and a black leather vest with fringe. Had I seen him anywhere other than our interview room, I would immediately have taken him to be a leather daddy.
We had our interview and then he started telling me about the city where the school was located, a city I'd spent a fair bit of time in. He noted the "huge queer scene" in the city, and began talking about the leather scene in particular and suggesting that it would be a draw to the school.
Yep. The leather daddy and the femme, right there in the interview room. I was absolutely devestated with the school cut the hiring line before they'd filled the position, but also secretly relieved that I wasn't about to be outed for not -actually- participating in the Life, but apparently dressing as though I did.
In the social sciences, a major quandry is the Ethnic Jewelry. I have a crap-ton of ethnic jewelry and I do NOT wear it to interviews because I think it's a lot of ridiculous posturing. Frankly, the absence of Ethnic Jewelry and the presence of my formidable 5' 8" frame in a pair of 3" heels is usually enough to set me apart from my stick-insect peers.
re: The Men. I'm going to be blunt here. One of my ass-hat colleagues applied to a SLAC this year. He got an interview (ironically despite his abysmal performance & lack of experience as a teacher.) He was planning on wearing a pair of RIPPED JEANS, a dress shirt, and a corduroy jacket with elbow patches.
"What do you think" he asked me. "Well, you'll probably stand out" was about all I could muster.
*Ass-hat colleague and I have had an ongoing battle after he plagiarized some of my work, so maybe I am a bit overly critical of him...
@ Tim (not Jim)
ReplyDeleteKeyboard Cat, play him off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ
Tim (Not Jim), hon, this isn't a crowd that ever cared about being popular.
ReplyDeleteClothes. In my discipline, the hungry grad student/upcoming theory star look is the skinny pantsuit/aggressive hair thing, on both men and women. The tenured and tired look, for women, is generally more drapey. Think Eileen Fisher.
BlackDog, I almost lost a queer studies job to a straight girl who looked more po-mo dyke than I did, for that very reason (the gay man on the committee later told me he mistook the straight candidate in the lipstick/short hair/boots for the real dyke. I, the vulgar homosexual, sported the Goodwill look after years of starvation on the adjunct tract). Needless to say I'm not impressed by hot outfits on job candidates. All they say to me is: trust fund, somewhere.
I think some of you seem to be mistaking "professional" for "trust fund" or "handsome/beautiful." (I suspect you may be thinking "conformist" too. Give me a break. It's a matter of simple professional respect.)
ReplyDeleteEvery grown-up should have a suit for interviews and funerals. My husband had to go out and buy two for non-academic interviews even though we were both living on a single assistantship at the time. Sure it was our clothing budget for the year. But it's part of the deal of being a grown-up. (Especially for mid-careers!) Not a big deal.
I generally think of you guys as pretty common sense, but here I am floored.
One of the funniest conversations I’ve ever had with my former advisor was on the subject of what to wear for interviews. Advisor: Tall, skinny, >60, awkward bordering on Asperger’s. Me: Short, petite, and owning a set of curves that are best hidden under a gunny sack in all professional situations. He just kept telling me that I should avoid belts or anything that accentuated my middle. I must have looked slightly confused, because the poor man finally gave up and said “just hide your secondary sexual characteristics at all costs.”
ReplyDeleteI now own one brown tweed suit that is two sizes too large. It has never failed me and is the frumpiest thing on the planet. Sigh…
On the other hand, the best advice I have ever received was to just not wear anything distracting. Presumably, you want the committee to focus on what is coming out of your mouth, and anything that takes away from that is bad. It could be something as simple as that the committee can’t focus on you because of your huge dangly earrings, or the squeaky sound your shoes make. That advice helped me more than anything else.
Men: Dress like Lenin.
ReplyDeleteWomen: Try to look like Ayn Rand.
My useless two cents.
@Cute Cleo: I actually wish there were a style of suit -- or any other ensemble -- one could wear to an interview in my discipline and be read simply as "professional." If there were, I'd buy it and wear it (assuming I could find it in my size; like BlackDog, I'm lumpy, but not, sadly, tall; "dumpy" is probably a pretty apt description). But the comments above confirm my observations among my colleagues: there's a whole system of clothing-based signification going on, with no neutral ground in sight. I'm glad to know that at least some interviewers ignore it, but it's there nevertheless.
ReplyDeleteNope, not mistaking professional for trust fund. Professional is a dark suit from Banana Republic, if you happen to be skinny. Trust fund is a Prada suit.
ReplyDeleteHandsome/beautiful is neither here nor there. For women, being stunningly beautiful can be a handicap, not that that's been my problem.
But I get annoyed by these conversations shaming people for not dressing well enough. I've only recently begun to be able to afford decent clothes, and my career has been just fine, thanks. Turns out it's more important to publish well than to dress well.
I long for the return of academic robes, personally. No individuality, but no judgement, and no decisions to make before teaching or interviewing. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteFailing that, the dark suit, shirt and tie for men, or dark suit, shirt, blouse, or dressy turtleneck for women seems to be the standard uniform. And despite ELS's fetish for santa ties, I wouldn't advise standing out by virtue of your clothing. Banana Republic -- perfect. Boring is good. I was at an interview once where the interviewee wore a skirt, a blouse with a peter pan collar, and a headband. All items separately seemed neutral; together, disastrous. Noone wants to hire a 30-year-old who thinks she's Alice in Wonderland. She was bright, and probably completely oblivious to the effect. Ask someone, or several someones -- neutral and trusted colleagues or grad student friends -- to assess your interview outfit, and take their advice. Don't get defensive and think: 'but this is who I am!' Rubbish. Who you are is what comes out of your mouth. (Ok, yes, that's simplistic and bodies do matter, la la la Butler la, but just let's operate as if it's true for this particular purpose.) Uniforms aren't necessarily oppressive.
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ReplyDelete@ Tim (not Jim):
ReplyDelete"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
- Oliver Cromwell, dismissing the Rump Parliament.
For you, this is particularly appropriate.
@Clothes:
Astronomers are notoriously badly dressed. While observing, they tend to dress like field geologists, in flannel "lumberjack" shirts and jeans, but with less sturdy shoes such as running shoes, not that they ever do much running, as opposed to heavy-duty hiking boots. They invariably have flashlights in their pockets: white for professionals, red for amateurs. Since I do a lot of pro-am collaboration, I have both.
While serving as chair of a NASA review panel, to allocate funding or telescope time, one is required to wear a suit and tie. Failing to do so can get one "spoken to" dourly. I believe NSF has similar rules, although I've never served as a chair for them.
At conferences, dress is pretty casual. The older generation still wears jackets and ties, but anyone under 50 generally doesn't. Even with the older generation, though, expensive, designer clothes would look odd, not that anyone has them. When I was a graduate student in the early '90s, the uniform was corduroys, dress shirts, and sweaters, usually Earth colors, from L.L.Bean, Eddie Bauer, The Gap, or someplace similar. Things appear not to have changed much since then. One does see a fair number of students dressed like hippies or punk rockers, but almost never while interviewing. Interviewees are almost always in jackets and ties, or even suits and ties, with tats covered, piercings removed (except for one pair of earrings through the earlobes, on women), and hair a natural color. The only person I’ve ever seen not wear a tie during a job talk didn’t get the job. Women astronomers generally follow similar rules, although I observe they dress better than men, but then that isn't difficult.
While teaching, I dress in "business casual," meaning polo or dress shits and chinos. No one in my relatively young physics department wears a tie to class. It would look odd if anyone did, much like addressing students as "Mr." or "Miss."
I've been on many hiring committees and I've helped hire many different men and women, and I don't really remember what people wore, nor do I remember what I did.
ReplyDeleteSo I would guess that the "don't be too distracting" and "don't advertise your gender" advice is the best. You are absolutely NOT trying to attract the opposite sex, and if there's even a whiff that you are, it won't sit well. Dress like you're going out to a nice dinner with your grandmother. No ripped jeans. No sneakers. I think a nice dress is perfectly appropriate for a woman. A sport coat ensemble is perfectly appropriate for a man. Probably best to wear a tie because most other guys will be.
But honestly I don't know that any of my colleagues, past and present, would even notice a "good" suit from a bad one. I'm trying to think of one incident where "looks" factored in. I can't. You want to create an image where the last thing people think about is...your image.
I generally don't notice too much about what people are wearing, with one exception: if they're dressed too casually, I think they really don't want the job. Seriously. I've noticed a decided correlation between "no jacket / tie / nice sweater over a shirt" (you must have at least one of these three) and phoning in the interview. Men who show up only in shirtsleeves invariably turn out not to have done their research about our department/programme/university, because frankly they weren't really planning to come.
ReplyDeleteNote for men: to avoid giving off the "I'm not serious about your institution" vibe, you can skip any two of the jacket/tie/nice sweater over a shirt, but not all three. You cannot wear only a sweater, or only a shirt. Check shirts are particularly lethal.
Cass nails it re: robes. I would be psyched to not only wear them to my job interviews but also to teach in. It would solve many quandries.
ReplyDeleteStella's point is also well-taken and one I have heard before: nothing distracting.
Marcia: The leather daddy incident occurred during my first year on the market and I'd gotten a "sudden call-up" interview, where they ring you at the conference and say "Hey, come by our interview hovel in the bowels of the hotel!" So, I was wearing what I would normally wear for the conference...hence the lipstick and perhaps aggressive hairdo missteps. I was actually applying for a job related to my work in Starvistan, which made the whole thing even more surreal.
One more thought...as a misshapen woman, my best friend is a relatively inexpensive tailor and Jones New York outlet stores. I honestly think that simply knowing I look well-put-together helps my confidence immensely.
Oh, no, BlackDog not missteps, especially not if you're misshapen. Just, you know, gay men don't really have good gaydar for lesbians. They just think they do. And the inner glow from being put together: priceless.
ReplyDelete"it closely resembles what Hillary Clinton often wore on the campaign trail"
ReplyDeleteReconsider your choice of fashion role models. She didn't get the job she was interviewing for, ya know.