I have seen the future of our workforce, you guys, and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t look good. I don’t mean skill wise. Despite all of the stereotypes of millennials being entitled, short-sighted, and way too distracted by shiny objects like cell phones and Apple watches, they do bring a lot of edge to the workforce. (And yes, THEY. I am technically in Generation Y, so lay off!) When I say that the future doesn’t look good, I mean that they make terrible decisions when it comes to dressing themselves. At least they do when it comes to interviewing. And really, is there a more important time in your professional life to dress well?
When I was in college and I got the call that a company wanted to interview me, I reacted like the class leper who was just asked to go to prom with the most popular guy in school. After getting over the initial glow that they liked me, they REALLY liked me, I made sure that my outfit was going to be on point. Off to Target I went to find an outfit that was professional but not flashy. I didn’t want them to be more distracted by what I was wearing but it had to be memorable and professional. I also didn’t want them to think that I was taking the job so seriously by wearing a full-blown suit but needed to make sure that I fit in with the company’s “business casual” attire. It was a tight-rope walk, for sure. In the end, I settled on a black pencil skirt, a plum button-up blouse, and a black suit jacket, but like a cool jacket. I also got a haircut the next day and spent a few extra dollars at the drug store to dye my hair. It was an investment in my future and it paid off. I got the first and only job I interviewed for. I’m PRETTY sure the plum shirt sealed the deal.
Fast forward 10 years later and man, is it a different playing field. First of all, companies are actually spending a lot of money on recruiting college kids. COLLEGE KIDS. Kids that are waking up on futons, eating ramen noodles, and complaining about their early morning 10am class are being recruited heavily to join companies before they even graduate. So, knowing they are being recruited for a job before they get their degree, do they run to the nearest mall or dust off their finest attire for the occasion? No. As it turns out, they still just wear whatever the hell they want to wear.
My company recently did a very large push at recruiting students out of school. They went to several campuses, scouted resumes before arriving, held interviews on the spot with good applicants, scheduled them to come on-site and sometimes even flew them down to be able to interview. To me, this felt like an overreach. Don’t get me wrong, these were some of the best and the brightest students at fantastic universities and I completely back the effort, but it felt like how Richard Gear went after Julia Roberts with the hotel, the champagne, the chocolates… Her standards are pretty low, dude. She’s just happy you called her by her first name and not something creepy. I mean, what are her other prospects? Now, that analogy doesn’t apply to our current batch of millennial candidates because as it turns out, their prospects are pretty good and they know it. This is likely where the “entitled” attitude comes from and probably why they don’t put any thought into what they wear for the interview.
Apparently, “business casual” means your cleanest pair of dirty jeans and your favorite bands t-shirt. And you might be thinking that this only pertains to men, but actually I have seen that women are some of the worst offenders. The better ones actually throw their unwashed hair in a ponytail while one didn’t even bother to dry her hair. To me, nothing says “I completely did not prioritize this interview that you have strategically planned for me” than waiting until the last possible minute to shower and then leaving no time for any other form of personal grooming. If you don’t have that kind of time, just shower the night before! Or, oh I don’t know, MAKE THAT KIND OF TIME! It’s a freaking job interview!
When I was in grad school, I taught communication and more importantly, I tried to teach my students that they are always communicating. The words they used represented their viewpoint of the world and the clothes they wore represented how they saw themselves and how they wanted other people to see them as well. When you go to an interview, all of your communication should be saying “I want to work here and here is why I am qualified!” If you go to an interview wearing jeans and a dirty t-shirt with a backpack on one shoulder, you are saying “You tell ME why I should work here.” Or if you are wearing an outfit that leaves little to the imagination, you are saying “who cares about my qualifications! Check out my rack!”
**Before anyone gets all up in arms about the last comment, know that I don’t say that lightly. I have worked with some Bad A women who can wear whatever the hell they want because they have earned that right. They also understand timing and tact, which is probably why they are Bad A women**
Maybe all of this will be a good thing. Apparently by 2020, millennials will be 46% of the work force. That’s 5 years away, people. So while that might mean that you will be lucky to have a conversation with your coworker for over 30 seconds before they start checking their phone or compulsively start taking selfies, it might also mean that in 5 years, we can stop drying our hair and wear whatever the hell we want to work. And really, if thats not what I’m working towards, then what is this all for anyway?
DailyDebs 