Hacker News Reader

Comment by ashark | Hacker News Reader

If Cialdini's Influence is to be believed, everyone says they don't treat people wearing (or driving) nice stuff better, but subjecting this to scientific scrutiny reveals that they overwhelmingly and significantly do.

If that's true then dressing well is pretty damn rational in general, and especially if money's on the line.

View on HN

As an Indian immigrant to Minnesota in the 1970s, my dad adopted a habit of ALWAYS wearing a suit. This gave him the benefit of the doubt in a lot of interactions where he wouldn't have otherwise had it. He kept up that habit for a long time and wore a suit to parent teacher conferences, my 4th grade violin "concert," etc. It most certainly got him a deference from others and did its job admirably.

He never got OK with my habit of wearing jeans and T-shirts even as an adult because he couldn't grasp how different my experience was from his.

That's something I got from my dad as well - dress for the job you want,not the one you have. I also found that dressing well fixes at least some of the age discrimination you face as a young person, you get treated much better while wearing a suit and a tie than when just wearing a t-shirt or a plain shirt.

So if you want a job at google but work at a bank, wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts?

Also, over dressing can be as much of a problem as underdressing. If you came to a def interview at say Facebook in a suit, it could get awkward.

I remember when a candidate came in wearing a suit, and our VP Eng said, "suit eh? Guess he didn't do his homework."

Seems very petty

Social signaling works both ways, and yes, in both ways, its petty.

For some roles, it's not petty. For example, for a sales role, you'd expect your salesman to be able to fit in at a client right from the first visit. If they can't do that at your company, that's a negative indicator for them.

Well, obviously that was an advice given by a working man trying to punch above his weight and be treated seriously in situations where most people from his background weren't. It worked for him, and it worked for me when I was looking for jobs, houses, had to do official business and run a company. I suppose a situation like you described has never crossed my dad's mind because it's just such a unique problem to have. As with any advice - use common sense?

Ideologies defy common sense; if someone believes a suit is always appropriate, they might not accept that there are contexts where it isn't. Likewise the other way around.

Aim for the middle.

Black pants, white shirts. Works everywhere.

My dad, whose dad was from Poland, did the same...always wore a suit to seemingly just try to make the statement that he wanted to belong...similarly thought it not feasible for me to wear jeans and t shirts.

I tend to do the opposite. I distrust people who wear suits, especially in settings where it's not common to do so. I see it as a possible indicator that they are trying to hide their limitations.

For example, people giving their talk wearing a suit at a scientific conference? Very high chance of bad science. If you do amazing research you don't need a suit to impress anyone, the ideas you present will be more than enough.

>I see it as a possible indicator that they are trying to hide their limitations.

Fir myself, I don't know if I see it as that, but I certainly see it as an indicator that they might be the kind of person who judges /other people/ based on how they dress.

I don't care how you dress, but if you care how other people dress, I'm definitely judging you for that.

so you are biased to hipsters who who take care to dress like it looks like they don't care, and you might be the kind of person who judges /other people/ based on how they dress.

How do you know who is taking care to appear that they don't care? Some people really don't care.

It takes hours of effort and a whole range of products to look like you've just got out of bed

Unless you just don't shower and/or shave.

I work from home. I don't need effort and products to look like I just woke up.

100%. I actually grew to like wearing a suit because when you're wearing a suit and somebody else isn't, there's a certain kind of cultural deference you get in many situations that is pretty handy from a business and a social perspective.

That's the exact reason why I hate wearing and even worst ever being forced to wear one.

I've never been forced to wear one in my professional life, so I dunno about that. But I'll wear one by choice on occasion. Even when I was working a day job I'd just wear a suit some days. My boss would think I was interviewing (I wasn't, usually), but it's really just because it is an easy, straightforward confidence boost.

Good to keep your boss on his or her toes too

Ehh. Every boss I've ever worked for after my initial out-of-college gig has known that I interview regularly, once every quarter at least; it was never anything personal or because of dissatisfaction, just "I like networking and I like seeing how the trends in the market are evolving". I usually didn't wear a suit to those, though, for the other reason: tech people get weird about well-dressed people and think they're "fakes" or whatever.

> tech people get weird about well-dressed people and think they're "fakes" or whatever.

There's some historical precedence there. Up until ~10-15 years ago the fakers and know-nothings used to always wear suits. They were the guys who pulled the purse strings, but had no clue.

Unfortunately, since then they've learnt to mimic the dress of their prey. So now instead of the "empty suit" you have an "empty hoodie".

Here in Australia, it is only sales people (cars, real estate, finanicial products), politicians and the CEO in front of the press. There is a very good reason not to trust anyone in a suit anymore.

"on occasion" being the keyword. It's good to be able to leverage a suit as a tool or for pleasure. Many people rejecting formal dressing miss that.

But the problem with a very strict dress code is that you don't feel being respected, you feel coerced.

You can either chafe, or acknowledge reality and use it to your advantage.

When I was younger, I chafed. Now, I enjoy getting seated at that restaurant table before you.

And the presence of a load of suits is a good indicator for the rest of us that it's not the sort of restaurant atmosphere we'll enjoy...

When everyone is wearing a suit, how does one differentiate?

Same way you differentiate between different stuff in the same class--quality, style, that sort of thing. I've never worried about that part of things, though, because the jump from "no suit" to "well-fitted suit" feels bigger to me than "well-fitted suit" to "well-fitted, expensive suit", and I mostly wear one because I like them, so I haven't indulged.

Watch I guess, Patek trumps Rolex and so on...

There's few things that make a worse first impression on me faster than someone wearing a watch as a status symbol.

Depends how expensive the watch is. If it's a $100K watch, you can be fairly sure they have money.

How would you know, unless you were making an effort yourself to check out their watch? And knew which watches were status symbols?

By comparing the quality of your respective business cards of course.

Watches. Tag < Rolex < Audemars < Patek. Or shoes, or quality of suit, style, age, companion, car, etc...

No one recognises the higher end. Sure people notice a Rolex, TAG or Breitling but, in 10 years I can not remember anyone commenting on my AP.

aka selling out.

jokes on you. i don't go to restaurants that cater to image over quality of food.

Hahaha oh man it's hard to tell on the internet but I hope this is facetious and you genuinely don't think restaurants are going to ever move you ahead in the queue.

I'm kind of being facetious.

It's just an observation that the more professional you look, the better you'll be treated. Yes, that's a fact. Yes, it's probably a sad commentary. And I rarely wear dress clothes - but I know when to, and I don't complain.

Anecdotally, I have worked at restaurants where we wouldn't seat people who were wearing denim, no matter how expensive it was.

Not everyone is built for success. At least you recognize that in yourself.

Funny, I read the comment as meaning "I get plenty of social deference, and any more would be just be annoying".

success? what does that even mean?

Ish. Precisely because the suit is a corporate uniform, it can be medium-to-low status in a lot of contexts. Traditionally, servants would always dress slightly more formally than the people they serve, so being overdressed can send the wrong message. If the suit isn't of impeccable cut and quality, you can often look like a used car salesman or an overly-eager intern. The extreme example would be arriving at a cocktail reception in black tie - you risk being directed to the kitchen and handed a tray of canapes.

As often as not, a well-cut sport coat and trousers play as higher status than a suit. It explicitly signals that you're dressing well by choice rather than diktat. Many semi-formal flourishes can carry this connotation - brown dress shoes, a knit tie, an oxford shirt or a flamboyant pocket square.

"Impeccable" is pushing it, but yeah, you need a suit that fits.

I've failed dev interviews for dressing too up and too down (both oddly in the same search!). If you can ascertain the standards ahead of time it's definitely helpful. In the absence of trusted guidance my current policy is a suit no tie and a shirt colored other than white and stubble or beard. It certainly won't tick everyone's boxes but if someone is looking for evidence that you own a suit it's there, and if they're looking for evidence that you're not trying to win the job through pageantry it's there. If they're looking for some more specific aesthetic qualifications they should have specified.

Yes, but I wouldn't want to spend time with someone who treats me better if I wear a suit rather than jeans, nor would I want to work at a place where such an attitude is common. I'd rather pass up on all the opportunities nice clothes would give me, so I can be myself and surround myself with people who think and feel like me. We are all apes trying to act like something else. A couple of pieces of cloth matter not.

But as GS just learned, if you relax the dress code, you can pay people less. so, dressing well is rational for employees, but dropping back offic dress code is rational for employers

Presumably, they can pay less / attract more staff for the same money because the talent they seek has a desire to not follow their dress code, which they will trade against other monetary and non-monetary benefits.

In that situation, voluntarily following a dress code that you don't enjoy following is illogical. As illogical as taking a voluntary pay cut.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com