Turning up to interview in jeans and trainers

[Cuffi]

Awaiting for interview/assessment day. Out of the ten waiting. Three are wearing pale jeans, trainers, Adidas tracksuit bottoms.

All the rest including me wearing smart trousers, tops and shoes.

From what few workers I have seen, some are wearing dark jeans.

I think everyone needs to wear smart clothes for interviews. Doesn’t matter if the prospective employer has a casual dress code

I once went for a job as tech support in a senior school a hundred yards from my front door. Four smartly dressed candidates and a tramp. Turns out the tramp was already employed by the school in a more junior role. His interview took a fraction of the time of everybody else and I was informed I wasn’t successful by phone on my way home. Guess who got the job. I felt really sorry about the candidates who had travelled up to 50 miles to get there. I should have complained about their unprofessional methods.

And sometimes looking too formal could be the wrong image.
My son works for a small charity everyone dresses very informally if he had turned up for the interview dressed very formally I doubt he would have got the job because it would look as though he wouldn't fit in.
And what is smart is subjective. It's arguable that polyester trousers from Primark are smarter than nice jeans

I’m an HR manager for a Wealth Managers and Ive seen some real sights over the years. We are fairly smart/casual for non client facing roles however for our industry, dressing smartly for an interview is the standard.

Someone once turned up in a tracksuit with wet hair saying she hadn’t had time to go home from the gym and get changed!

At least they turned up!

I read elsewhere recently that in the US they are much less formal about hiring. There are posters up in almost every establishment, you go in, talk to the manager and they give you a bit of an interview then and there. It’s much more human and gives the manager a better idea of the person. I wish the UK could be like that. It doesn’t have to be an ordeal.

There is a significant amount of people who will purposely ruin job interviews as its a way to keep getting universal credit

You don't necessarily need smart clothes to work in an office - and even if you do, a well fitting jeans and a nice jumper can look a lot better than cheap polyester.

This might be the case in some places but my partner is a recruitment manager looking after North America and he's organising processes for companies where they have up to 12 interviews for each role. Not all like that of course, but the majority have at least 2 in the companies he recruits for.

It depends on the job and the nature of the interview and the field. In my line of work jeans and trainers would be absolutely acceptable providing the person is otherwise clean and well presented. I'm now working in senior management and only now am I going for jobs dressing up slightly more but still avoiding anything that looks corporate.

I think the key is knowing what type of interview you're going for. The other thing is not everyone knows how or why to dress appropriately for interviews.

What matters is that the person being interviewed looks as if they have made an effort! Ironed jeans and top would be ok if it was clean and tidy, likewise shoes. But of course ability to do the job is the most important, along with being on time for the interview and being polite.

I was just about to say that.

It absolutely has changed massively.

I worked in the Secretariat of a Quango between 2002 and 2013. The Members, appointed by Ministers, met formally once a month. At the start dark suits and a tie were de riguer on Council Day.

By the time I left it was shirtsleeves and open necks.

I work in a call centre, if you turn up for the interview and you can read and write you are pretty much guaranteed a job, most are gone a few weeks later anyway!

I interviewed for a Senior EA role and dressed smartly. My interviewer wore a lounge suit with hoody.

It’s still the same, if you sign on for JSA, even if you don’t get a payment you can get funding towards transport and clothing for interviews.

It's a call centre not a court. "The clothes don't make the man(woman)" Maybe the casually dressed are very experienced call centre workers and better qualified for the job than the ones in suits.

Even our underwriters dressed casually when they had to come in, we worked remotely long before it was popular.

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/about-us/news-and-media/latest-news/what-is-the-flexible-support-fund

Some years ago, before Lockdown, I was interviewed by a young man with three quarter length skinny chinos, no socks and sneakers !
It works both ways, the interviewer should dress appropriately too.
A manager at my previous job met some customers in her gym kit.
I've also been caught out walking to an interview, a car went past and soaked me driving through a massive puddle, I swallowed some of the water ! Needless to say i didn't get the job.

Employing the person most suited to the role is professional.

The reality is a lot of the job advice I was given as a teen is out dated especially for entry level jobs

Some of it is just old advice handed down through generations for people that haven't interviewed for similar roles in decades.

If you apply for a job now days it's likely the person interviewing you will be born around the 80s ish, lots of the advice routinely given is from people trying to be recuited by generations far above that eg CV advice given to me is predominantly from people who were trying to market themselves to at best people born in the 40s.

I was taught how to do a CV for example by job coachs/teachers and my mum (who was probably taught by her teachers!), all of whom mostly have CV writing experience that is marketed at completely different people

My 60s born father got entry level jobs in a way that outright doesn't work now days for 90% of jobs, then hopped around in specialist interviews with bucketloads of experience.

In fact I could name lots of people who have tried to give me advice who haven't set a foot outside their industry, or even their company in 20+ years.

Like any task you can think of the climate 20+ years ago is very different to now

The trainers I would not object to, jeans depending on their appearance, but tracksuit bottoms I would.

This is the UK where we don't do style or have some pride in appearance. Just visit France for a day and the difference is notable.

"If you apply for a job nowadays, it's likely the person interviewing you will have been born 1980's ish"

Spot on.

My DS went for an interview for a job in retail a few to years ago. He wore chinos and a smart shirt (I advised him that a tie was probably overkill). He came back and reported that one of the interviewers was wearing jeans.
DS got the job - which required wearing a uniform, so no clues from that for interview attire.

How is that unprofessional?

It's not the Tramp bit but how the process was handled.

Really? It’s not always easy to find trousers in your size and height in a charity shop, never mind smart ones. The benefit in giving vouchers is the interviewee has clothing for the job as well, as a suit was expected in a lot of jobs in those days.