How to Screw Up an On-Site Interview | Hacker News Reader

How to Screw Up an On-Site Interview

artima.com

61 pointsDeprecated55 comments

If I’d known about the anti-suit culture, I would have worn Dockers and a polo shirt. I just wanted to convey that I took the interview seriously. Apparently the feeling wasn’t reciprocal.

This isn't the first time I've heard of candidates being looked down upon for wearing suits to interviews, and I'm really curious what the thought process is behind this.

I've done interviews where the candidate wore a suit, and where they wore jeans and a button-down, and nobody felt offended. The only time someone's clothing made a truly negative impression was when it was clear their suit had most likely been crumpled up in a ball 30 minutes before the interview -- some of his answers to technical questions suggested he was generally sloppy, and his appearance was just one more data point to support that conclusion.

Is there some inherent distrust in someone who shows up in a suit?

The advice I've always heard is to wear the suit and adapt as the day goes on. If you are confronted with a room full of blinking shorts and sandals types then you gratefully pull off the tie, drop the coat, unbutton the collar, and roll up the sleeves while saying something about "glad you guys won't expect me to suit up".

I think it's mostly subconscious. I doubt anyone consciously thinks "That guy's wearing a suit. Don't hire him." However, people probably tend to take it as a sign that someone is dressing up to compensate for a lack of ability.

The article a few days ago about people not liking overly-enthusiastic, helpful team members comes to mind. It might be that some people just get an impression like "This guy thinks he's better than us", or the fear that the new guy will dress up, making them look bad if they continue to dress more casual.

My first interview for a technical job, I showed up in a suit and tie. The rest of the interview had each person start by asking some variant of "wait, are you sure you're interviewing for engineering and not marketing?" The feeling this conveyed was that if you wore a suit, you couldn't possibly be a real engineer.

I landed the job - a summer internship - but the suit was a distraction. It certainly did not help me relax and perform my best. The job rocked, so I'm glad the people there were able to look past the suit. Since then, I've taken to asking people what kind of dress code they expect on an interview.

I always get the feeling, when this happens, is that they're really trying to convey "hey look, we're really a pretty casual bunch..." not "man you're a tool for wearing a suit."

I would honestly interpret it as a positive. That casual atmosphere is pretty ingrained into the culture at that point.

Since then, I've taken to asking people what kind of dress code they expect on an interview.

Skulk around in the parking lot the day before and see what they wear. Then, dress one notch -- and only one -- above that standard.

The one time I tried asking, they actually did want me to wear a suit, and the way they phrased it seemed to imply that I was ignorant for having to ask in the first place. That was an odd experience.

you /look/ like a marketing guy. nerds don't trust marketing guys. If you show up in a suit to a tech. interview, my first thought is that you want to be management, not a tech; and you are just using this as a stepping stone. Now, if I /need/ management, that's great. But if I'm trying to hire a tech, it's a net negative.

on a related note, I think there is a certain amount of hostility towards good looking people in general in the field, for purely irrational and emotional reasons. (really, it's related to the irrational hostility towards ugly people in marketing and management.)

Don't read too much into it. I've never gone to an interview in anything other than a suit and, trust me, if my employer asked me to fill a management role, I'd decline the offer (and if told that I didn't have a choice to decline, I'd start looking for a different job). I also never ever wear a suit for work.

The reality is that this phenomenon of wearing casual attire for interviews is a significant, and very recent, departure from the prevailing norm for white collar jobs and many people, myself included, have the "always wear a suit to a job interview" social custom as deeply ingrained in our consciousnesses as other customs like table manners. If the tech community were to abandon table manners in favor of "cave man" style dining, would you then hold it against an interview candidate if they opted to use silverware while dining with you? Bottom line, if the candidate is wearing a suit to the interview, assume they are doing it for their own comfort. To behave otherwise is, for that person, taboo.

obviously, judging people by surface characteristics is stupid. to some extent, we can't help it... but I think that a good interviewer has learned to look past his or her biases. There are better ways to figure out if a technical person knows what they are doing than looking at their surface characteristics. (really, I think getting some idea of a candidates actual skill is easier to do in a technical interview than when, say, interviewing a manager type. Of course, this might just be a result of where my experience lies.)

I was just trying to explain why the surface characteristic of wearing a suit and generally looking good is sometimes seen as a negative in the computer industry, even though it is a positive characteristic elsewhere.

It really shows that you didn't prepare for the interview. If its casual or business casual and you should up in a suit, you look like an ass. Besides, who codes in a suit and tie all day?

I wrongly assumed that someone would ask me between sessions if I needed to use the rest room.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the local culture but in the countries I've lived this strikes me as a complaint valid only for a child. When adults need to use the restroom, they make their apologies, ask where the restroom is and go.

That aside, why would someone ask someone else if they need to use the restroom anyway? It's rude and isn't their business. If you think someone's being timid and really does need a break, it's more common to ask if they want to "take a break" rather than asking flat out if they need to go potty.

In a lot of places having a visitor wandering the halls looking for a bathroom wouldn't be appreciated

Hence the "ask where the restroom is" part. Though the most relevant part of the point is that whether you're escorted or not, the person who needs the restroom is the one who asks to go.

One of the last sentences: "This is not a true story but similar things have all happened to me or to my colleagues. "

I found this to be a let down. The story was structured as a first person narrative, I didn't expect it to be fiction.

Agreed

Particularly followed up with a pitch for the book to teach you how not to do these things that didn't happen. I agree that interviewers forget that an interview is a two-way street; you're pitching yourself as a fit for the interviewee as much as they're pitching themselves as a fit for your company. But it's such a good point, I was sad to have the fun anecdote turn out to be a marketing pitch for a book instead.

You know, I always hear employers talking about how important it is for employees to be passionate and to show they want to work for them. But they forget that it goes both ways too. The end result is an interview where employers expect me to show them how absolutely thrilled I am at the prospect of working for them, but they make little effort to convince me that I'm anything more than an inconvenience to them.

When you have an interview where an employer does want you and shows it, it makes all the difference in the world.

True, but most employeers have the idea that they are doing their employee a favor by giving them a job and therefore expect them to be thankful that they would do this, totally forgetting that it is an exchange of values (your expertise versus their money) and that both parties are equal in the exchange.

It doesn't help that there is a subconscious social belief about this in society too.

Abso-f'ing-lutely!

One of the best interviews I ever had came after I said to the recruiter (after the first round of interviews) "I don't think these guys are interested in me." The hiring manager scheduled another interview the next day and proceeded to take me through each lab, showing off all the cool stuff they did. That morning was quite clearly a "come work for us, it'll be fun" invitation and I appreciated it.

Now that I'm in the position to do hiring, I try to have the same attitude.

There are places that interview people with no intent of hiring them, but rather to prove a point: "We can't find anyone with the right skill set, therefore we must do X." Values of X may include:

- Outsource

- Find a cheap, indentured H1B employee

- Choose another technology path that was ignored due to politics

- Stick it to a manager who insisted that "anyone" could do this

- Use the inability to hire a new person as an excuse to steal someone from another team in the company

In the end, the interviewee is merely a pawn in the scheme of things.

Other turn-offs:

1. Pull out an inconsequential suboptimally worded sentence in my CV and ask questions about it while wearing a half-smirk.

2. React negatively to anything about my CV or manner that is considered general practice among other interviewers. Is it silly and unnecessary of me attach a cover letter as PDF? Of course it is, but some companies' HR screenings require it, and I don't know your company's screening process.

I would love to read stories of interviewees who've decided to call it quits on the interviewers. It must happen right?

If they did so with any semblance of professionalism, the stories wouldn't be very interesting.

I once interviewed with a company where it was apparent 10 minutes in that it wasn't work I was interested in (they were a stealth mode startup, so my preparatory research didn't tell me much). I made my interests clear when describing myself, and it was apparent on both sides that there wasn't a good fit. We mutually agreed to cut the interview short. Not a very interesting story, but no bridges were burned and nobody's time was wasted. I'd expect that most such stories are similar.

You know, based on reading thedailywtf[1] for a while, I've concluded that it happens very infrequently even under the most absurd circumstances. Most of the time, the interviewee says something like "This was bizarre, but I figured I should just stick the interview out". I'm curious why that is.

[1] http://thedailywtf.com/Series/Tales_from_the_Interview.aspx

It is properly the same reason people don't walk out of the movie theater when the movie they where going to see was really crappy.

Often you can still learn some things from the interviews. A glimpse into differing company cultures, for examples.

"...I figured I should just stick the interview out"

I had that experience at an interview. Among other things, the interviewer was late, I was stuck in a tiny office with three people interviewing me, etc, etc. It was quickly apparent to me that they didn't respect their programmers. I decided half way through the interview that I had no interest in the job, and considered politely departing right then, but I stuck it out. I figured it was good interview practice.

Morbid curiosity. :-)

10 years ago, the dot com I was working for went out of business. Even better, I was a PHP developer with all of a couple of years of experience. The dot-com crash was not a good time to be interviewing.

The recruitment agent I was using must have been equally desperate. He sent me along to an interview for the position of in-house developer (yup, the only one) with a company based in central London.

The interview went well at first, but after the first 15 minutes, I sensed something was amiss. The damned recruitment agent had edited my CV to say that I was a Perl developer with 5 years experience. I explained this to the 5 people interviewing me, and to be honest, they were lovely about it.

In fact... a bit too nice about it. They wanted me to inherit their complex Perl-based system, despite me not having a clue about the language. I explained at length why I wouldn't be a good hire, but still they wouldn't end the interview. In desperation I wrote down the phone number of a friend who DID have some Perl knowledge, and practically ran out of the place.

It was nice, and I realise that non-techies might not make a distinction, but my they were insistent that I not leave!

Typically developers complain the other way round - that employers don't believe they could be able to pick up any other skill than the ones already on their CV.

I still think PHP is basically ASP for Perl - sorry... (Yeah I've heard people claim it is not like Perl at all).

> I would love to read stories of interviewees who've decided to call it quits on the interviewers.

In 2002, I was in a tough lurch between my first company's failure and a dire job market here in Atlanta. With -$210.00 in my checking account, it was all I could do to hide my excitement when a local auto insurance company called me in to interview for a senior/lead software development position.

I was almost immediately apprehensive when I arrived. The entire office basically amounted to an open call center, it was messy, and there were tangles of 10Base2 coax running haphazardly across the floor between computers. Not a good sign.

Though I had made it clear that I was interested in web development, it turned out that the job would mostly entail RPG and VB6 (what a combination). At that point, I was already looking for the door and thinking of polite excuses.

When the interviewer handed me a generic two-page application to fill out, as if I were interviewing for a job at McDonald's, I knew it was time to leave. I handed the application form back, thanked him for getting in touch with me, wished him the best of luck finding someone else, and navigated back through their 10Base2 obstacle course as quickly as possible.

I never did it but once, as I think even the worst interview on earth is something you use to learn.

But for the one time when it happened, long long time ago, it went like that:

I was sitting at a round table with 4/5 personn in front of me doing the interview, among them the CEO

this CEO in the middle of the interview ask me how much salary I would expect

I don't really block and answer straight away

then the CEO went into a fury on how I would dare to ask that much and that the price of bread could not augment that much

I kindly asked if he was comparing me to some slice of bread ?

He answered "yes"

I stood up, smiled and walked out of the room, not saying a word at all.

Stupid small story, but since that time I will always check the range of salary a company expect to pay for a job offer, it also helps to filter out the company having unreasonable expectations (I'm looking at the one who look for tons of languages, 10+ years of experience and want to pay you the salary of an intern).

my goal is to reach a point where i never have to subject myself to an interview or application process ever again. they are fundamentally broken and often irrelevant or carried out amateurishly. once you've shipped enough code and had enough successful projects under your belt it gets rather old dealing with it.

You'll get to the point where you want the interview because you want to see what kind of weird situation you're getting yourself into. At this point in my career, I do most of the interviewing so I can size up if it's even possible to be successful in a new place.

An alternate title - "10 things that signal you should leave the interview and not even consider working for the company"

If any 2 of these had happened I wouldn't even consider working there. You can only image what the culture must be like there. There's something to be said for treating candidates like humans, even if you don't really want to be interviewing.

I have been known to bail from an interview as soon as it became evident we were wasting one another's time. I'm not sure why the author put himself through all that. As it stands, it really reads like someone who's bummed they didn't get hired.

He didn't

This is not a true story...

sounds like they weren't that in to him more than anything else...

I've never worn a suit to an interview. I've always thought people in suits have something to hide, aka, if they really knew what they were doing they wouldn't be overdressing.

I'm a research scientist who wears a suit and doesn't understand your attitude. I don't wear a suit to cover up any lack of ability, I wear a suit because it's very comfortable, extremely convenient (lots of pockets!) and means that I don't need to worry about my outfit. I also enjoy being treated better generally because I look neat - doesn't matter about your body shape, a decent single-breasted suit makes you look good.

Isn't part of the attraction to no-dress-code places (like start-ups, universities and research institutes!) that you can wear whatever you like without being judged on it? Why do you prejudge those of us who wear a suit? Especially when they're uncertain of the dress-code of the place that they visit for the first time! I don't think that I'd want to work somewhere that the staff make such a judgment on such a shallow first impression, if I am honest.

I've never worn a suit to an interview, but I liked your response nonetheless. Where I work it's a mixture of dress/jeans/suits.

Here in Colorado it's very informal; it's just not the norm to wear a suit to an interview. It raises eyebrows. This is especially true for tech jobs. I would never not hire someone because of this, but the reality is I've never met anyone that over-dressed like that for an interview that aced it. If they did, I'd probably joke with them about the suit, but that would be that.

I also personally find suits unoriginal. It's actually more work to find a nice outfit that is stylish, professional and looks good; a suit is like choosing Pad Thai at a Thai restaurant - it's just the easy choice, not necessarily the best choice (though sometimes it is the best choice too). I also think ones appearance gives you a glimpse into what makes them unique; if I'm meeting you to consider hiring you then your appearance matters. It won't be the reason I hire you, or not hire you, but it matters. Sorry if that bothers you.

I guess I'm just confused now. What would you wear that is stylish and professional that is not a suit or a derivative thereof (collared shirt, wool/linen trousers)? You ruled out about 90% of a professional's wardrobe, as I see it.

When attending an interview, I want to look smart and make it clear that I made some effort to dress well without trying to stamp my personality all over people, so the default choice is a well-fit suit with a nice shirt. I'm genuinely curious: what would you wear, or expect someone else to wear?

I can only speak for myself, I don't expect anyone to dress a certain way (beyond what has been covered - aka a suit is over doing it, trying too hard). But me, I typically wear a pair of nice dress paints, let's say charcoal gray. I'd pair that with a button down dress shirt, long-sleave - something that is s solid color, usually a bold choice there to stand out such as burnt orange or a burgundy for example. That's pretty much it other than of course matching a proper belt and shoes (in this case black shoes and belt, I'd go to Aldo's for that). Just swing into Banana Republic or Limited for Men; poke around those shops and you'll get the hang of it. Maybe pick up an issue or two of GQ and Men's Health while you are at it. You can also switch out the long-sleave shirt in the summer for a shirt-sleave polo style shirt; I'd again get something more modern from a shop like Limited/BR, but you get the idea.

Anyway, that's literally what I wear to work most days. I have 3-4 pairs of dress slacks from a good store like those, different colors - black, charcoal gray, dark brown and a light gray (almost a tweed). Then you can buy a variety of different colored shirts. Then you just need a pair (or 2) of black and brown shoes, and matching belts (though you can probably get away with black shoes, and a black belt with the brown slacks, but I personally like to really look 'compete').

It's funny but I was starting to think about creating a post or blog entry on this because it's not that hard to dress really sharp without going too far. Also, if you aren't good at picking clothing bring a girl with you, or just ask one of the store clerks, they are usually really into this stuff and can point you in the right direction (but always pick things that appeal to you in some way, allowing them to influence your choice, not make it for you).

Strikes me that the only difference between the way that you and I dress is that I wear a jacket ;-) (I can't stand ties). I wear the jacket because the silhouette is flattering, and there are all those handy pockets. Why should such a simple, very practical item make you think at such a person is over-dressing?

I've worn a suit to almost every interview I've been on. In big companies, it is usually expected and never looked down upon. Smaller places tend to be a little more casual.

It really depends on company size, industry, and region.

Also, I agree with you. Wearing a nice suit isn't uncomfortable at all. It is the dress shoes that kill me!

I've found that with shoes, you really get what you pay for in terms of comfort. There's a world of difference between shoes that cost $50 and those that cost $100. There's a big gap again to those that cost $150. The leather is much more supple, therefore more comfortable and they usually look nicer too.

I've been told that once you get to over $300 you stop getting an increase in quality, but I've never been able to bring myself to pay more than $150 for shoes I must admit.

you might be in your 20's or younger because wearing a suit to an interview was pretty much the standard in white collar professions at least up into the 80's. The software field has probably been among the earliest to start shifting away from that. But you're right, today for a software dev interview it will often look like overkill and awkward. It's so hard to find people who can program period and are avail and are interested in your particular gig.

Nope, I'm 43 (yeah who let the old guy in here???).

Maybe it's because I'm 43 that I have the opposite view of this; growing up in the 80's and seeing what kind of people wore suits (aka the 'greed is good' crowd), that probably had a negative affect on me. There is also Dr. Johnny Fever (WKRP anyone?) and his compelling 'Suits Versus the Dungarees' argument (sorry couldn't resist an obscure 80's ref...).

But I want to STRESS I would never not hire or hire someone based on this - I just think ones appearance helps give you another factor at evaluating a potential hire.

I loved that show! And MASH. We're about the same generation.

No I actually agree with you that the suit doesn't convey anything substantive, and if a programmer wore that today to an interview I'd find it suspicious because, at the very least, it means he/she is out of touch and maybe desperate. But that said, if the person has the technical skills to do the job, and is not a jerk, and is available and interested, that should count 99.9999% and whether they wears a suit or not shouldn't counteract those other factors.

If I was holding an interview for the role of bankster, that would be different.

Tangent Note: I can "play" the SWAT theme song in my mind, note for note. And MASH, Love Boat, Cheers, etc. I remember when TV show theme songs went into a dark ages roughly around the the 90's where they stopped having cool theme music anymore, especially long instrumental ones. There were a few cool exceptions, but for the most part the art seemed to be lost. I don't watch TV anymore, so perhaps it came back.

ps. I'm in Colorado too. We should hold a HN meetup sometime, I know of at least a few others in the Front Range area.

Hey cool on the HN meetup colorado idea. I've been wondering if there were enough to do one here. My email is on my profile, let's chat about setting this up.

I've nerver worn a suit to an interview either (I'm based in London so it's not really ingrained in the culture), but I do not think at all that people wearing suits try to hide anything.

I don't like suit for myself, it make me feel I wear a uniform.

And yeah, if an interview require to wear a suit, I kindly inform them that I will not take the interview for that very reason.

As a side note, the wearing/not-wearing a suit can be a good test of how a company interviewing you is "intelligent" or "retarded".

[edit: I'm not in my 20s, suit even for the first interview is just not in my culture]

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