<p>G.P., one of these days I will figure out where you worked that you always cite. haha</p>
<p>^ yeah I have been trying pretty hard to connect the dots with this guy. Im not a stalker, I just like knowing about stuff. He’s not a bluffer , so I value his opinion regardless of what I think of them. I have succeeded with two others on this forum.</p>
<p>I went to some career fairs and never wore a suit. Instead, I wore a nice shirt that was not boring but not over the top (something to make me memorable). I had tons of job interviews, to the point where I had to turn some down because I did not have time to go to all of them. When I went to the actual interviews I wore a suit, however.</p>
<p>"What about wearing a belt that doesn’t match your shoes? That shows a lack of attention to detail and/or a low level of concern/interest in the interview. I’ve seen people rejected for that. " - G.P. Burdell</p>
<p>Seriously!!! Wow that would have not even occurred to me…</p>
<p>I don’t know if I trust G. P.'s advice.</p>
<p>Colorblind people can’t tell what colors go together, so wearing a belt that clashes with shoes is common. However, it’s discriminatory to not hire someone because their colorblind unless normal color vision is a job requirement that cannot be reasonably accomodated.</p>
<p>But again - your ability to match your belt color and shoe color doesn’t reflect on your abilities as an engineer. A recruiter that discriminates based on that basis is creating a special criteria that people must follow, but that criteria doesn’t reflect on their real abilities.</p>
<p>It could be that particular company has created a database and found a coloration between inability to match belt color and job performance. However, I think this is unlikely and based on a recruiters false assumptions.</p>
<p>All these little subtle things… resume paper vs printed paper, color coordination, etc aren’t going to make a huge difference obviously. However, every little advantage helps, especially when you’re competing against so many people. You only get to make a first impression once…</p>
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<p>It’s discriminatory not to hire low GPA students or to only hire engineering majors. It’s only illegal to discriminate based on protected classes, and attire is not a protected class.</p>
<p>When you walk into a room, talk to a recruiter, send an email, etc, it says something about you. What you wear, how you act, etc, says a lot about you. If you show up with an unpressed suit, it says that you don’t have the interview process under control and didn’t plan ahead for your interviews. When you show up with a resume on printer paper, it says that you don’t know the social norms of interviewing and/or aren’t proud of your resume. When you show up late, it says that you don’t value my time or my company. When you show up and ask non-directed questions about my company, it says that you didn’t take the time to do your research. These are all conscious and unconscious cues that you give the recruiter before you even open your mouth. Much like the infamous study of psychological effect of tie color. </p>
<p>Is that going to sink your interview? Probably not. But it’s generally not a good idea to start “in the hole”.</p>
<p>i disagree with the belt and shoes example in …maybe it’s the midwest, but engineers here are very fashion indifferent, they don’t care if you gel your hair, match your suit perfectly or shine your shoes, in fact they can be turned off by it …they care about substance, how you speak, how easy it is to pull info from your resume, what your stats are, if you’ve done research on the company before…they’re pragmatic</p>
<p>that being said, I’m all about getting a suit that looks perfect, matching my belt, shining my shoes, cutting my hair, having a real nice concise resume and a leather folder, but I do this for me…most people at the CF here are indifferent or even turned off by it…I trust your guys credibility so it could just be iowa agrarianism I’m seeing though…</p>
<p>It’s not a fashion issue, it’s looking nice, presenting a good image, and showing attention to detail. </p>
<p>People care much less at a career fair. Someone earlier mentioned a backpack - most people are pretty forgiving when it comes to things like that. People understand that students are running back and forth between classes and are in a hurry. But in an interview, people will look.</p>
<p>From my experience…</p>
<p>College career fairs are more formal that experienced-personnel career fairs. I would agree that decent resume paper, a nice leather binder and classy attire is needed more because you have no experience yet.</p>
<p>I have attended a few of the “cleared/intel” job fairs here in the Washington DC area, printer paper, polo shirts and very little company research were prominent. Again, these were experienced folks, so the “fluff” was eliminated from interviews.</p>
<p>All of the other things about your personal appearance make sense to me. The printer paper issue does not. But, at the same time, I haven’t had that much experience talking with recruiters and attending career fairs. Nonetheless, it just seems stupid.</p>
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<p>Then, by all means, use printer paper.</p>
<p>The only thing more funny than insisting everyone use non-printer paper is suggesting that the fact someone uses special resume paper implies they are significantly more attentive to details (and that will manifest itself in a better engineering career). In my opinion, its absolute nonsense.</p>
<p>Actually, only one person on here is insisting on using special resume paper.</p>
<p>My college’s career center specifically advised students against the practice.</p>
<p>Actually there are two of us. Our career center specifically advised us NOT to use printer paper, and to spend the money to get the resume paper.</p>
<p>My college advised us to use “high quality” paper. I don’t understand how using it could hurt.</p>
<p>We were told to use printer paper also. Supposedly when the companies scan in your resume the more expensive stuff can be harder for the spiders that index your resume to read.</p>
<p>GP gives a lot of good advice but I think he’s off base here.</p>
<p>I can understand business majors tightening their corsets and powdering their faces for career fairs and interviews. I just thought it was widely known that their jobs mostly consisted of peddling snake oil.</p>
<p>I assumed engineers were less superficial than that. Actually, this nonsense was drawn to my attention when we had to spend an entire lecture about the nuances of a business handshake!</p>
<p>Wow! Let me try.</p>
<p>“Engineering” companies that would throw out the resume of a rockstar because it was printed on “regular” paper or because he didn’t time his handshake to the ms are either:</p>
<p>A) Trying to leverage a poor product in a nice package</p>
<p>B) Working on CRUD enterprise software for banks</p>
<p>B) Expecting some client facing role from the hire</p>
<p>C) Boring, uptight places to work at</p>
<p>I think it’s pretty clear that none of the suggestions people are criticizing were supposed to be make-or-break tips by any means…</p>
<p>These physical first impressions are inevitable, even if the rep is subconsciously making it, and any little advantage can help.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t affect them unless your paper has some sort of pattern on it. Ivory, light gray, or off-white won’t impact the scanning process. </p>
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<p>Resume paper is very cheap. A trip to Office Depot can get you a pad of 200 sheets for less than $10. And, yes, ensuring that you used the appropriate paper for the appropriate context (there’s a reason it’s called “Resume Paper”) shows attention to detail. Before I buy paper, I know the type of weave, the material in the paper, the brightness, and the weight. That’s the sort of detail oriented person you want as an engineer. Not someone who says “whatever, it’s all the same. Let’r rip.”</p>
<p>But, it’s fine. If you guys are the type of people that want to use printer paper, go for it. I’m just trying to be helpful. But I’ll advise you that in my decade + of career fairs at schools all across the country, about 75% of resume I’ve received were on resume paper. For some reason, the higher ranked school had a higher percentage than the lower ranked schools.</p>