A reader writes:
One thing occurred to me 15 years in the past that I proceed to surprise about. Once I was a senior in school, I used to be making use of to internships in my discipline (comms/PR if it issues) in Washington, D.C., with the assistance of my educational advisor.
One in-person interview at one of many huge legacy PR companies went rather well. When my educational advisor adopted up about it, they mentioned the corporate thought I used to be a implausible candidate and so they’d completely love to rent me, aside from one factor: they thought the shirt I used to be sporting was inappropriate for an interview setting and, significantly, that it had sequins on it. In the end, I didn’t get the fellowship due to it.
I discovered an nearly precise duplicate of the shirt that I’m attaching. If I recall appropriately, I wore it with a properly tailor-made black pantsuit that I used to be very proud to have bought on my restricted school finances.
Do you assume that the corporate was proper in 2010 (given I used to be a 23-year-old who knew nothing concerning the working world on the time, past a number of internships, and specifically the costume code requirements of the time) or not? Would you may have made the identical name 16 years in the past? And, do you assume this could nonetheless occur in 2026? Ought to we be warning new grads away from all sequins? For the report, I might not put on that shirt now — however actually solely as a result of it’s very 2010s. I keep in mind it being a part of my common workplace job rotation as soon as I received my first job later that yr.
I wouldn’t suggest sequins at a job interview in any respect, then or now, simply because they have a tendency to learn extra “nighttime apparel” than skilled interview put on … until you’re in a discipline with much more leeway than D.C. communications companies are likely to have. D.C. is notoriously conservative about work put on.
Nevertheless it’s a ridiculous purpose to not rent you — significantly because you have been 23 and nonetheless figuring these things out, however even in case you’d been older.
And as sequins go, this specific shirt is much less of a difficulty than, like, a full sequined prime or sequined costume can be — and the truth that you have been sporting it beneath the jacket of a pantsuit makes their response much more over-the-top.
I’d put it within the class of stuff I’d advise a candidate to not put on with a view to take advantage of skilled impression, however wouldn’t advise an employer to not rent over (as a result of it actually doesn’t matter). And a candidate who they mentioned was implausible and who they’d in any other case love to rent — in different phrases, the place you clearly didn’t give them some other purpose to doubt your judgment, and the place this may very well be simply solved by explaining their costume code to you upon rent? Absurd.
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