Open Thread

Gem, I think that clothing depends on the industry, but unless you are in a very, very informal field, I think that you should wear formal clothes, like a suit or a dress/jacket set, business-like dress, etc. and you don’t have to wear the va va voom shoes, but heels look nice, more dressed up. It is better to err on the side of formality. I once interviewed a refugee from Enron, who came to the interview in a pair of black skinny pants, a sweater and a leather jacket. She also answered her cell phone during the interview and discussed her parting health care benefits. No thank you, ma’am. Next.

“Gem: Don’t wear pants to an interview. Wear a businessy skirt thing (I don’t know the right words for this stuff). No pants.”

yeah – i’ve heard the same thing. at conservative type places, always skirt suit on interview.

jackal — someone once graphed for me the curve “power over time” of a jd at a white shoe firm. Starts out highest at recruitment. You want pro bono work? Sure. Boom year bonuses to keep everyone happy and from jumping to a competitor paying higher bonuses. Power shrinks as you progress toward partnership decision point, when it reaches absolute zero. If/once you make partner it slowly starts to creep back up in correlation to time and/or rainmaking, depending on compensation scheme. I imagine at present the left end of the curve is not as high as it used to be.

I’m really good at being interviewed, but that’s just because I have a super weird background and no one ever asks me any hard questions because they waste all their time asking me about the circus and stuff like that.