When you interview at Google, I think you're told 'dress as you're comfortable'. But really that's bad advice, as if you're most comfortable in a suit and wear that you're going to be getting it wrong.
It would be more fair if they said 'most people wear jeans and hoodies'. 'Wear whatever you want' is what they want to be but not the reality. 'Wear a hoodie' is the reality.
Genuinely curious. Are you saying that if you wear a suit to an interview at Google, you're going to be automatically dinged and not hired because of what you're wearing? I admittedly don't interview candidates for engineering positions at my company, but I can't imagine marking someone down for wearing a suit even though you basically never see anyone in a suit day-to-day in the office.
In that specific case the candidate might not have been hired, anyway, they were pretty marginal. But it is 100% a real thing that Bay Area tech people will ding you for wearing a suit to an interview.
I don't think there's literally a box on the feedback form that says 'were they dressed appropriately', but I think it's part of the impression people will form of you and will judge you by.
But, no, I don't think I've ever heard someone comment about an individual being "overdressed" in a negative way. But then I don't work in Silicon Valley.
Those were pretty much the only people you'd see hanging around in suits.
Unless you are Vint Cerf of course.
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0606/opinions-rich-karlga...
reminds of of something similar at fb with matt jacobson, who dresses well:
"And as one of the oldest and best-dressed executives at the company, he still looks completely out of place on Facebook’s campus. “I get stopped by security all the time because they think I am a visitor,” he said. “Security will come up to me, ask to see my visitor’s badge and say, ‘Who are you?’ ”"
Its not a good counter example because he’s got the social clout to break the rules - knowing when you can do that is also part of the unfairly unwritten rules.
If you start in tech on Monday, you’ll know by Tuesday what people wear and by next Friday you’ll probably have enough giveaways to never need to buy a t-shirt or hoodie again.
But they do care! If you wear a suit they'll think you're not technical like them. A big part of Google culture originally (when it was unusual) was wearing hoodies and jeans rather than chinos and shirts. If you didn't fit in with that you made yourself look like an outsider.
And the unfair bit is that it's not written down anywhere. You just have to implicitly know it. If you don't have family or friends in the industry you won't know it, they won't tell you, and so you won't fit in.
I've seen tech people scoff at people in suits, and look down at them. Have you never seen that?
Like the other poster mentioned about hardware vendors at Apple wearing suits, it’s probably not personal it’s just stereotypes at play. Google has a particular penchant for “watch out for tailgating” and expects all employees to challenge folks without badges. It’s not common to see other Google engineers in anything particularly formal, so it becomes a clear “hmm, I should make sure that person has a badge” or alternatively “hey security person, I don’t think they have a badge”.
I used to pretty much always wear the business casual "uniform" but a few years ago I found myself going a bit more casual at the more developer-oriented events I would attend because I was starting to feel overdressed.
If I showed up to a half-pipe in full wedding garb or to a wedding in skater garb, people would reasonably give me weird looks.
Being able to appropriately adapt to different situations is a needed life skill. “In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.” —Thomas Jefferson
The benefit I see in tech is you can wear whatever “weird” clothes you want and be accepted and given a chance to prove you can do the job much more than in most workplaces. Try showing up to a law firm or investment bank in flip flops and shorts vs showing up in a suit in tech. You’ll get a lot farther in the latter than the former. To me, that's fair (or at least wildly more fair.)
This usual ends up with some decent back and forth and inevitably I send them the following Oatmeal comic. [0]
My point is that if you play it right, you can turn awkward social norms to your advantage. You just have to be willing to ask.
If the CEO dresses in a T-shirt and jeans, there's a _very_ high chance everyone else would be dressing the same or less formal.
This is as someone who used to weigh around 255 and now weighs around 170.
The more fit you are, the more comfy fitted/tailored apparel tends to be.
If you are atypically shaped due to various fat deposits, tailored clothing becomes more difficult to get just right in order to not pinch/restrict you in all the wrong places.
Have you considered that they may enjoy dressing nicely?
That's widening the gate as far as you can.