Appearance

While there is no such thing as a universal professional appearance, each profession and organization tends to have established norms. Whether you are an artist at a creative agency, a carpenter on a jobsite, a dance choreographer on a movie set, a doctor in an emergency room, or a banker at a financial institution, there are expectations as to how a professional should look.

A professional appearance can be divided into two categories: what you are wearing, and how you are groomed.

Knowing what to wear requires that we know our organization's expectations, often documented as the organization's dress code. If there is a dress code, then you should follow it; if there is no dress code, then it's up to you to figure out how best to dress for work.

For example, if you worked at a tech company without a documented dress code, and you worked in the sales department, business casual might be expected when you were working from the office, and business formal might be expected when you interact with customers - especially if that tech company was also in the financial industry. If, on the other hand, you were a software developer who never interacted with customers, it might be appropriate to wear whatever you like.

Still, even if you have complete freedom to wear whatever you want, in the absence of an established dress code, it may still be a good idea to adhere to social norms - assuming there is a social norm.

Imagine you were hired by a design agency where your job would be to create artwork for client advertising campaigns. In the interview, you ask if there is any established dress code, and you are told that there isn't, so you show up to work on your first day in whatever you felt most comfortable in - which happened to be athletic wear. Upon arriving, however, you notice that everyone is wearing business casual, and that you are the only person who looks like they are dressed for the gym.

While you are technically allowed to wear whatever you like, if you choose to continue wearing athletic wear to work, whereas everyone else is wearing business casual, you would be sending a subtle non-verbal signal to your co-workers that you think of yourself as being different from them, and don't necessarily consider yourself a part of the organization. While this might seem unfair, the reality is people tend to judge others based on appearance more often than anyone would like to admit.

As a general strategy to help ensure that you don't show up for your first day on the job dressed inappropriately, it's usually a good idea to pay close attention to what the people who interview you are wearing. As an interviewee, it is usually expected that you show up to the interview wearing business formal or at least business casual, but the people interviewing you would typically be wearing whatever they wore to work that day. If you notice they all seem to be dressing a certain way, then on your first day it would be advisable to dress as they do.

Ultimately, adhering to dress codes - whether they are formally documented or loosely based on social norms - is about signaling your desire to be a member of the organization. If you dress differently than everyone else, you signal that you are different. If that is your intention, so be it, but you should be fully cognizant of the risks of sending a non-verbal signal to your organization that you may not consider yourself a part of the organization.

Professional grooming generally covers the aspects of your appearance that are not clothing, with the most visible aspect of grooming usually being your hair.

At a bare minimum, hair should not physically get in the way of getting your work done. If you work at a desk, any hairstyle should be perfectly acceptable, but if you work on heavy machinery, where long hair might get caught and cause you physical harm, then your hair should reflect either established or common-sense safety standards.

Beyond safety, you should be cautious of hairstyles associated with a counterculture, which is to say, a sub-culture that rejects mainstream culture. Perhaps the most recognizable of these is the spiky colored mohawk often associated with punk rock culture, which outside of being a professional punk-rock musician, sends a clear non-verbal signal that you do not adhere to rules, or at least place less value on rules than the majority of society. Once again, you should be cognizant of the non-verbal signal you are sending, and be sure that it is the signal that you want to send.

Though it may be advisable to conform to the social norms of professional appearance for your organization, you should not sacrifice your sense of individuality. Professional workplaces are not the military, in that soldiers are expected to both look and act the same. Instead, professionals are expected to think for themselves, and share their own unique perspectives when collaborating with colleagues.

Where individualism and conformity can become confusing is in professional organizations with rigid dress codes - as might be found in large multinational financial institutions. It would be understandable for an employee to believe that if they should look like their colleagues then they must therefore also think like their colleagues. Though there may be some truth to this given a specific context - such as in a customer service role where each representative would be expected to provide the same level of service to every customer - generally, organizations want to maximize their available pool of collective brainpower.

In practical terms, this means that if you are in a meeting surrounded by people wearing business formal, and you are also wearing business formal, that doesn't necessarily mean you should all think the same. Instead, what you wear should be considered tantamount to a uniform - something you put on to signal a commitment to organizational standards - but inside of that uniform is an individual capable of unique perspectives, original ideas, and creative solutions.