Physical appearance in job interviews

I believe we have all heard the saying "Dress the way you want to be addressed" and that stems from the fact that we humans are visual creatures which means we quickly make judgments based on what we see. This gave birth to the phrase "first impressions" because we get a quick sense of a person with our eyes and not the other sense organs. This is why you can hear something about a stranger that might sound hard to believe but when you set eyes on the person, what people have been saying begins to sound true

Our physical appearance plays a big role in the way a person sees us and this is not a matter of me just saying it, we have all made judgements based on how a person looks. Here in Nigeria, immediately you see someone dressed in black, having heavy dreadlocks with a few scars on their body and generally looking very rough, the first thought that comes to your head is "This person is dangerous". If you're walking down a lonely road and you see such a person coming in the opposite direction and then across from him, someone dressed formally is walking towards you too, your instincts will make you walk towards the smartly dressed person.

It's the same way you will look at a young man and everything in you will start screaming "This guy is a fraudster" just because of the way he looks and sometimes you might even be wrong. Physical appearance is very important and you should always dress for the occasion you're going to. If you're going for a meeting with gangsters, then sure you can pull off the I-just-got-out-of-prison look but that won't be appropriate for a job interview unless you're applying for the role of a bouncer at a shady nightclub.

When it comes to job interviews, you would want to do everything in your power to increase your chances of getting the job and that includes making a good first impression on the interviewer. Considering your appearance is the first thing they would see even before you open your mouth, it makes sense that you sharpen your appearance. At this point, it's not a matter of what is right or wrong but the fact remains that physical appearance matters when it comes to being evaluated by others and during job interviews, your physical appearance is an indicator of various traits.

Some of these traits are responsibility, attention to detail, professionalism, competence and so on. I'm not saying that you have to go to the extreme but sticking to the basics of personal hygiene and dressing appropriately isn't such a bad thing, is it? What I mean is to make sure your hair is neat, fingers trimmed, clothes are ironed, you dress responsibly and wear nice perfume too. The way you dress should reflect the company's culture and what I mean is that if you're going for a bank job, then common sense dictates dressing formally.

But for some other type of workplace, you can get away with dressing casually. For example, in the tech field, I have seen a lot of people go for interviews wearing just a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. People do put on suits when going for tech interviews but most of the ones I have seen dress casually. And dressing casually doesn't mean you have to look haggard, keeping it simple and modest is what matters, and don't forget personal hygiene too. One thing I have learned in the tech field which probably applies everywhere else is that your technical skills aren't the only thing that are considered during interviews.

Aside from soft skills, interviewers also look at dressing and I have actually seen some of them (especially HRs) talk about it on Twitter. Personally, I do agree that physical appearance should also be looked into during interviews, because why wouldn't anybody want to dress appropriately for an interview? One thing some people don't realize is that having a good appearance is a big confidence booster. So, aside from making a good impression on the interviewer, you're also helping yourself in the long run.

One last thing I would like to add is that during interviews, you're marketing yourself and trying to convince the interviewer why they should hire you. It's like going to the market to sell a cake that has very bad packaging but your neighbour has well-packaged cakes, which one do you think people would go for? People would immediately assume that the well-packaged cake is better, even though yours is. On that note, I wouldn't change this system if I had the power to, I see nothing wrong with keeping up good physical appearance during interviews.

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