How to Dress for a Second Interview

Video Transcript

"Going back for a second interview, you have an advantage. You are able to go into this organization and see not only the hiring manager, but hopefully, you are able to pay attention to a little bit of the culture and the surroundings of the organization and see how, more specifically...more specifically, excuse me, everybody was dressed. And you can cater your dress after that. Obviously, if you go into, say, you're going to a large insurance firm and you wear a navy blue suit to your first interview and you get there and you realize that even the hiring manager and everyone that you see are wearing t-shirts and jeans. You may not want to show back up in a...in a suit. And oftentimes, in your first interview, this will be a good question to ask -- you know, "Am I overdressed? Should I...should I not have worn this?" And you can...you can ask questions, but you kind of do want to cater more towards what you see. You do want to err on the side of being...it would be best to be a little bit overdressed than under-dressed, obviously. And so if you happen to be wearing a tie when you probably could have gotten away with not wearing one, then that's okay. But it doesn't go the other way. If you're not wearing a tie when you most likely should have been wearing one, you definitely want to not make that mistake. If you...if it is an organization where business attire is expected, usually what you want to do is try not to wear the same suit if you're a guy. And for girls, you don't want to wear the same thing you wore to your first interview. Not everybody is capable of...not...or not everybody has two suits or three suits or multiple suits, and not everybody is in a position to where they can actually go and purchase another one in time for the second interview. The good thing about this is a suit is not all one thing. A suit is multiple pieces, and especially for guys and girls, suits can be...you can add stuff and take stuff away and sort of make it look like a completely different suit. And that's the fortunate thing about being a guy. If you have a black suit, you can change the color of your shirt, change the color of your tie, and it looks like a completely different suit, fortunately. And girls can go the same way. But you do want to pay special attention to what you wear. You want to make sure that all of your clothes are pressed and neat, guys and girls. One thing that's oftentimes overlooked are shoes. Shoes should be polished and should be nice, and they should be business dress for guys and now pumps for girls, leather. That oftentimes is overlooked. However, if you do take the time to put a emphasis on your shoes, hiring managers will notice that and it does go a long way and say a lot...a lot about someone. So it depends on your first interview, but you have that advantage, and that...and that's a good thing that you can sort of gauge it from there."