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Your personal appearance is not only an important factor in how you present yourself others, the way you dress reflects the importance you attach to the situations and people around you. If your clothes are unclean or wrinkled, you may appear to be careless and uninterested in the business situation or people you are interacting with.
If you’re dressing for a job interview, be sure to choose attire that projects the image you want the employer to receive. If the company has a “business casual” dress policy, it’s still better to take a conservative approach for the initial introduction. Just because the receptionist told you it was Casual Friday, that doesn’t give you the green light to wear your comfy jeans and your new “TGIF” sweatshirt to the job interview.
Even after you get the job, consider your appearance. Someone once told me this, and it stuck, “I dress to the level I want to achieve.” So, if you want to be CEO, think about how you look when you leave the house in the morning. Do you carry yourself like an executive?
Here are some basic rules of thumb you can follow:
- When meeting with business associates or clients, whether in your office or theirs, you should dress appropriately — if they wear suits, you should wear one.
- If you’re interviewing for a job and don’t have the inside scoop on their dress code, try to scope out the place before your interview to see how the employees are dressed. It’s also perfectly acceptable to contact the receptionist and ask her about the company dress code policy. You can tell her you’re applying for a position at the company without having to introduce yourself.
All business attire, whether traditional or casual, should be reflective of a professional, dignified appearance.
Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire ~Charles Dickens