This was early pandemic, so years ago--summer of 2021. Phone screen, then an in person, then a video interview. I liked the guy who would have been my immediate boss well enough. His boss, though, the guy who was my final interview over video... wow. I'm only writing this review because Glassdoor is making me, but this is all true. This guy was much younger than the one that would have managed me, who seemed maybe late 40s. This one was more late 20s. This isn't just during covid, but pretty early covid, like we were still in partial lockdown in July. Anyway I'm wearing a nice polo shirt to the video call.
The first words out of this senior manager were to ask me why I thought it would be acceptable to wear a polo to a job interview.
I was at the time stably employed in a director level role and just looking for something new. And as soon as he said this I knew with 100% certainty I would never work for these guys. That was gross and irresponsible and I nearly chewed the guy out. My reasoning is simple. An interview is an unusual, already tense situation where the candidate is hoping to present themselves well. When you intentionally choose to put a candidate on the back foot, that might feel great to your ego but you're not merely making another person unnecessarily tense and uncomfortable--you're hurting the process, which means hurting the company.
