Reviews
Part of Where is an industry dress code actually written down, and by whom?
Industry dress codes mistakes: the traps and the way around them
Eight industry dress codes mistakes, from dressing off the interview day to misreading a safety rule, each with a correction that costs nothing.
The industry dress codes mistakes that follow are nearly all reading errors rather than taste errors. Somebody took a sample of one and generalized from it, or read a document as if it were the practice, or read the practice as if it were the rule.
Eight of them follow, in roughly the order they happen to somebody starting a new job. Each one has a cheap correction, and most of the corrections are questions rather than purchases.
What to take away
- Do not buy anything for a new job until you have seen an ordinary week. The interview day and the first day are both unrepresentative.
- Copy the median, not the loudest person and not the most senior one. Both are outliers for different reasons.
- Ask about the safety requirements separately from the style expectations. They come from different places and different people answer them.
Mistake one: dressing from the interview
An interview is the most formal contact most people have with an organization, on both sides. Everyone in the room is dressed for the occasion, including the interviewers, and the room is not the workplace.
Interview vs Ordinary Workday
Interview Room
- Formality
- Most formal
- Who dresses
- Everyone
- Setting
- Interview room
- Correction
- Ask at end
Ordinary Workday
- Formality
- Everyday level
- Who dresses
- Employees only
- Setting
- Actual workplace
- Correction
- Specific answer
The correction is to ask, at the end of the interview, what people wear on an ordinary working day. It is a normal question and the answer is usually specific.
Mistake two: buying before the first week is over
A wardrobe bought in advance is bought against a guess. A wardrobe bought after a week is bought against observation, and the difference is typically several items you now know you do not need.
Wardrobe Timing
Buy Before First Week
- Basis
- Guess
- Result
- Unworn items
- Risk
- Several mistakes
- Correction
- Hold money
Buy After First Week
- Basis
- Observation
- Result
- Needed items
- Risk
- Fewer mistakes
- Correction
- Wear safest thing
The correction is to wear the safest thing you own for a week and hold the money. Nobody has ever been penalized for being slightly plain in week one.
Mistake three: copying the loudest dresser
The most visible person in an office is by definition not the median, and copying them imports a position you have not earned and may not want.
Find Your Middle
- Identify three people at your level
- Observe what they wear doing your job
- Take the middle of the three
The correction is to look at three people at your level doing your job and take the middle of the three.
Mistake four: copying the most senior person
Senior people are often permitted latitude that is not general, in both directions. Some dress up because of who they meet; some dress down because nobody will say anything.
The correction is to read your own level rather than the corner office. A senior partner dressed for a client meeting and the same partner on a quiet Friday look nothing alike, and neither one tells a new hire what to wear.
Mistake five: treating remote work as codeless
Video has its own code, narrower than the room's rather than looser. The frame is small, the lighting is poor, and fine patterns and high contrast behave badly, which is a separate subject covered in the guide to headshots and presentation.
The correction is to have one reliable upper half rather than a wardrobe, and to test it on camera once rather than guessing.
Mistake six: assuming client-facing days are the same
An organization's internal register and its client-facing register are frequently a level apart, and the client's expectations, not the employer's, set the second one.
The correction is to ask what the client environment is like before the first visit, and to ask whoever has been there rather than whoever wrote the policy.
Mistake seven: reading a safety requirement as a style rule
A rule about sleeve fullness, footwear or jewelry near equipment is not a matter of appearance and does not bend. Arguing about it as if it were a style preference wastes everyone's time and leaves the hazard in place.
The correction is to identify which requirements come from a hazard assessment. That framework is OSHA's general requirements for personal protective equipment, 29 CFR 1910.132, with footwear addressed in the foot protection standard at 29 CFR 1910.136, and the person to ask is whoever runs the safety program.
Mistake eight: treating an accommodation as a favor to request quietly
When dress required by religious practice, or dress made impossible by a disability, conflicts with a workplace rule, do not negotiate an exception with a supervisor that day. A defined process applies.
The federal agency is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). For religion, the rule comes from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the EEOC sets out in 'Religious Garb and Grooming in the Workplace: Rights and Responsibilities'; for disability, it comes from the Americans with Disabilities Act and the EEOC's 'Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA.'
The correction is to raise it with whoever handles those requests, in writing, early.
The eight, sorted by cost
| Mistake | What it costs | The correction |
|---|---|---|
| Dressing from the interview | A week of feeling wrong | One question at the interview |
| Buying too early | Several unworn items | A week of patience |
| Copying an outlier | A misread of your own position | Watch three people at your level |
| Ignoring the video code | A worse impression than the room gives | One camera test |
| Assuming client days match | One bad first visit | Ask someone who has been |
| Misreading a safety rule | An unresolved hazard | Ask the safety program |
| Delaying an accommodation | Avoidable difficulty | Raise it in writing, early |
One line in the table covers both copying mistakes: mistake three, the loudest dresser, and mistake four, the most senior person, cost the same and take the same correction, because both are cases of copying an outlier rather than reading your own level.
What is not a mistake
Wearing the same few things repeatedly is not a mistake, and it is what almost everyone senior actually does. Being slightly plainer than the room is not a mistake either; being more elaborate than the room is the one that gets noticed.
How the code differs by sector
Law and finance sit at business formal for client-facing work and relax at the desk, with litigation and investment banking at the strict end. Healthcare adds clinical rules that override style: closed-toe, non-slip footwear, sleeves that can be pushed above the elbow, and no dangling jewelry or long nails, and those come from a facility's infection-control policy rather than from a style guide.
Technology and creative offices usually sit at business casual or below, and the code there is read from the room rather than from a document. Hospitality, retail, and food service often publish a uniform, while manufacturing, construction, and laboratories run on PPE rather than on dress.
The guide to industry dress codes describes these sector patterns.
Target registers appear in business formal at the upper end and in business casual for men and business casual for women below it.
Common questions
How long should the observation period be?
A full week, including whichever day the organization treats as different. Two weeks if the role includes travel or client visits, because those are the days you cannot see from a desk.
What if the workplace has no code at all?
Then the code is entirely the room's, and reading it is the whole job. Start at the middle of the range and adjust after two weeks.
Is it worth asking a colleague directly?
Yes, and it is under-used. Ask someone at your level who started recently, because they will remember what confused them.
Does any of this change for a workplace that is mostly remote?
The observation period moves to the camera and to the occasional in-person day, which is the one that catches people out. Ask specifically what those days look like.
