Importance of Appearance for Work Experience.
So you walk into the office for the first day. You've been excited about this experience for weeks, ever since you found out you got this placement. You knew from the second you saw the placement online that it was perfect for you and it's all you ever wanted for Christmas.
That is how an awesome week of work experience should start (in my opinion at least. You may have had work experience placements which you hated but they payed you fifty pounds to eat biscuits, as apparently happened to a friend of mine once). But just as much as the work experience placement made a good impression on you when you first saw it, if you want people to take you seriously, to want to work with you again and to be a reference for you then you need to make just as good a first impression on your supervisor.
Best way to immediately make a good first impression? Dress smartly.
You probably look awesome in your crop top and jeans or in your old, well loved (read: tattered) converse but turn up to a work experience placement wearing them and it is most likely that you will not be taken seriously. Sorry guys, just cause the tenth Doctor could pull it off doesn't mean you'll be able to.
It seems unfair for people to judge you for what they're wearing but it happens every day. I know I've judged people on what they wear and I know people have judged me and that doesn't change in the work place.
I don't think it matters if its a placement at a bank or at a university, better to be safe than sorry and to dress formally the first day. If it turns out that everyone normally wears jeans and a t-shirt, then great! You know exactly what you're wearing tomorrow! It is better to be overdressed that underdressed. When I did work experience at UCL, I came in wearing a smart dress the first day and dressed down after that.
After exams I was planning on dip dying the bottom of my hair blue for a change, I wanted to do it before I went on holiday so that if I hated it I would have time to get it changed. As soon as my parents heard about this they basically said it was a horrible idea to do it after exams and that I should wait until my work experience at The Lancet was finished.
Why? Because apparently in the work place you can get judged for having your hair coloured. It seemed that even if I was smartly dressed in a suit with sensible make up they would have judged me on the fact that the end of my pony tail was blue.
In conclusion, you will get judged for your appearance in the work place and it is better to initially dress well and then dress down than to come in the first day and give the people you're working with a bad first impression of who you are.
Hey, monkey suits really aren't all that bad! (... you get used to them)
Had any interesting experiences at work experience to do with dress sense or otherwise? Tell me about them in the comments!
You probably look awesome in your crop top and jeans or in your old, well loved (read: tattered) converse but turn up to a work experience placement wearing them and it is most likely that you will not be taken seriously. Sorry guys, just cause the tenth Doctor could pull it off doesn't mean you'll be able to.
It seems unfair for people to judge you for what they're wearing but it happens every day. I know I've judged people on what they wear and I know people have judged me and that doesn't change in the work place.
I don't think it matters if its a placement at a bank or at a university, better to be safe than sorry and to dress formally the first day. If it turns out that everyone normally wears jeans and a t-shirt, then great! You know exactly what you're wearing tomorrow! It is better to be overdressed that underdressed. When I did work experience at UCL, I came in wearing a smart dress the first day and dressed down after that.
After exams I was planning on dip dying the bottom of my hair blue for a change, I wanted to do it before I went on holiday so that if I hated it I would have time to get it changed. As soon as my parents heard about this they basically said it was a horrible idea to do it after exams and that I should wait until my work experience at The Lancet was finished.
Why? Because apparently in the work place you can get judged for having your hair coloured. It seemed that even if I was smartly dressed in a suit with sensible make up they would have judged me on the fact that the end of my pony tail was blue.
In conclusion, you will get judged for your appearance in the work place and it is better to initially dress well and then dress down than to come in the first day and give the people you're working with a bad first impression of who you are.
Hey, monkey suits really aren't all that bad! (... you get used to them)
Had any interesting experiences at work experience to do with dress sense or otherwise? Tell me about them in the comments!
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