Most of the time, dress codes are there for a reason. Sure, there are the unfair instances of "no spaghetti straps at school" and "no jeans at the office". But at the same time, there are certain work environments that don't call for inappropriate wear. And when you go in for that first interview, you've got to leave a good impression.
u/Rusty-Unicorn asked: Hirers of Reddit, what did a candidate wear to an interview that cost them the job?
Not off to a good start.
His beat headphones over his neck. I don't know if it counts though because there were many other reasons also including 3 f bombs to start the interview.
Ha I actually interviewed a girl about a year ago who didn't even take her earbuds out of her ears. She came in with a group of 3 or 4 friends. I sent her on her way after talking to her for about 45 seconds.
Wow.
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Once had a guy come to interview at the software company I worked at wearing a "Female Body Inspector" shirt... that ended quickly.
Trying to milk the unemployment for as long as possible?
Hire him for the costume department.
I was working for a concessionaire for a MLB team where we do a mass hiring event before the season starts. This man came into the waiting room in street clothes, asked to go to the restroom, and changed into a Halloween-style pimp suit. This included a hat and a cane.
Thanks for the mental image.
A T-shirt of Mickey mounting Minnie from behind. It was disturbing on so many levels, not the least of which was how well done it was. This was for a minimum wage position, but still.
Email addresses can make or break an interview.
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Not what they wore but their email address on their resume was a description of their breast size preference.
I had a guy use an email with a domain that was REALLY strange-sounding, so we went and looked it up. It was his own personal cult website about how he believes he's the next coming of Christ and that the world is ending really soon.
... we decided to pass.
That doesn't seem fair.
I used to be the physician lead for my group's NP program; as such, I was involved with the interviews/hirings. Our business manager refused to consider a qualified candidate because she wore baby-doll socks with her outfit. I never understood that one...
An unexpected prodigy.
I sometimes do campus recruiting and interviews, but don't make final hiring decisions. With that said, at a campus event, my partner and I were going through a line of over 300 people. We scan their resume, ask a bunch of questions to get them in our system, and add some quick comments/suggestions.
Had a person wait in line for several hours. When she got to me, she had no resume, and still had on pajamas. Now I never try to judge a book by it's cover, but I have to get through a person in under 4 minutes on average, and have about 20 questions to ask to put info for HR into our system.
I was ready to power through this as fast as possible, to get to a candidate that was an actual potential hire. However, this girl was graduating with a 4.0 BS Computer Science...at the age of 17. She spoke 7 languages fluently (I could not verify this). She said she had started working on PHD research when she was 14, but didn't want to continue with school. I had to convince her to go make a resume, as I could not complete her in our system without it, and wanted to make sure she was visible to the right people.
Honestly I was surprised she even wanted to work at our fortune 500 company. It's a great start for most people, but I would think prodigies would have other options than a 70k salary in Texas. She did go make a resume...and waited in line again. I made sure HR found her profile, but I have no idea if she signed on with us.
Bad call.
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Not an interview, but...I worked for a video webcast company and we hired freelancers to operate our cameras sometimes when we were short staffed. The rule is that you wear all black so you blend into the background. Freelancer showed up in a tie dye sweatshirt and cargo shorts.
He ended up operating a camera right next to the head of the bioethics committee that reports directly to the President. Not only did we not ever hire him again, the client asked us to never bring him back.
A dress code for Furries, maybe.
Interviewing for our Food Service department within a well known hospital in St. Louis. Young girl, lower 20's, comes in wearing bright yellow uggs and a Davey Crockett hat. As if that wasn't enough she also had one of those tails. Not the butt plug type just attached to her pants.
Nothing like an ice-cold Sprite.
Probably very late to this party...
I used to do interviews for a retail store, due to the frequency of applicants we'd have group interviews. Anyway, this one time two dudes came to the interview, obviously friends and obviously stoned. The first kid was decently dressed (jeans and a t shirt) but, the second kid was dressed in Green Cookie Monster pajamas and an oversized T down to about his knees.
The worst part was one of them opened a can of sprite in the middle of the interview. They wound up going sip for sip sharing the 12oz can.
The Green Guy.
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He wore all green. Green rimmed glasses, green sweater, green shirt, green jeans, green socks and shoes. Even have a green bag with a button with his face on it labelled green guy.
What was his thought process?
I've interviewed a few job candidates, I've never come across anything objectionable. But I've heard stories.
In university I heard a story from someone giving a presentation about being prepared for job interviews. She said she once passed on a female candidate wearing a belt buckle that said "Shaved" on it.
I also recall going to a networking event in university with a bunch of students from the Ivey School of Business, most of us wore dress shirts or suits, and one guy showed up in jeans, a beater top, and a sideways ball cap. I don't know what that guy was thinking.
Gross.
I was interviewing for a teaching position at a local school. The principal was conducting the interview and eating lunch at the same time. He wore a towel (with a hole cut in the middle) over his head like a bib.
This towel/bib looked like it had seen 1000 lunches already and never been washed. He was literally interviewing me with a mouth full of mashed potatoes and wiping his face on the bib as he went. I never broke eye contact because I knew if I looked at that bib I was going to start giggling. Got the job!
Oh my God....
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I used to hire for a retailer that had been sued for a lack of diversity. As a result, the interview included the series of questions, "What is diversity and inclusion? Is this important in the work place? Why or why not?"
I had someone basically define segregation then tell me that it was important because not everyone gets along. The best part was that this was a group interview with young adults. The sheer horror on one of the guy's faces I will never forget. He had the look on his face that I was feeling. When I asked him, his response he emphatically said, "The exact opposite of what she said!"
Potty mouth.
Every single question was answered with some version of 'Well... like... you know ... " Or "F*** does that really happen here?" When asked why they wanted the position they said 'McDonald's fired me and you guys pay better, so what the F*** right?" Yeah... No.