Professional Dress

For the free write this week, I have chosen to talk about the diminishing sense of professionalism related to attire in the business world. More specifically, what is considered acceptable to wear to work is becoming increasingly relaxed and more lenient. Although I think I would sometimes enjoy the comfort of being able to wear jeans and casual shirts to work, I ultimately view this as very unprofessional and I think that it could ultimately take away from the quality of work produced.
My opinion that one should always dress appropriately could be due to my upbringing. I went to a private school since pre-kindergarten, and through high school I had a dress code. It varied as I got older, but I was never allowed to wear jeans, sandals, sneakers, t-shirts, too short or too tight apparel, or anything with writing or explicit content on it. Also, whenever we traveled as a family, my parents forced me and my siblings to dress in khakis and polos, or something else besides jeans and a t-shirt. We certainly were never the kids who were allowed to wear jeans to church. Because of this, when I see people dressed too casually in more formal situations, such as church or at work, I view it as unprofessional and disrespectful to colleagues and those around you. They had to make an effort to look nice, and so should you.
The modern dress for work is becoming increasingly lax. One time I visited my dad’s office and there was a woman wearing crocks. Professionals dressed in t-shirts are not uncommon to see. Moreover, my mom has her own business as an attorney, but when she does work for companies such as AOL or MCI, and she visits their offices for meetings wearing black dress pants, flats, and a blazer, she is told she can be more casual. I believe professionals need to dress for the job they are doing and for the job that they want. Also, if someone goes to work looking sloppy, I believe that carelessness will become transferable in their work. When you “dress to impress” you are definitely taken more seriously.

Cover Letters

This article on cover letters was definitely very beneficial to me. I have worked so much with drafting resumes since high school, but I have not had nearly as much experience with creating cover letters. I definitely understand now the benefits of making a cover letter more personal and researching a bit into the company that you are sending it out to beforehand. I have been applying for internships recently, so I already have a cover letter drafted, but I am definitely going to make some changes to it. I think the one I have drafted is too generic for all job applications. I did, however, realize that you can’t wait for a company to call you to set up an interview. You need to take the initiative and call them. In my cover letter I say something like, “I will be calling your office in a few weeks to inquire about possible internship or job opportunities”. The one part of the article that I am not sure that I agree with is the PS part, or more specifically, writing it free-hand. There is something about PS that seems kind of unprofessional to me, and I can’t imagine writing it in hand-writing. I don’t think I will ever use this technique on a cover letter. It was also interesting to learn that many cover letters are not even read. I thought they were the first thing to be looked at but it does make sense that employers wouldn’t even read it unless they liked the resume. After having read this article, I realize that there is a lot more importance placed on a well-written cover letter than I had thought.

Second Life Interviews

I do not like the idea of hosting career fairs and job interviews in second life. Although I realize that they indicate that it is not a replacement for a real-life interview, I still deem it absurd for various reasons. First of all, how does the interviewer know that the person they are interviewing in second life is the right person? It could be someone else who the interviewee hired because he or she is not as good at responding to questions. Also, the article mentions that an interview in Second Life is good because there is a backspace, so you can retract thoughts and plan out your response more. I view this as an unfair advantage and I believe you learn most about people when you hear what comes out of their mouths.

Technology comes with glitches, computers freeze, things just happen when using technology. One example used in the article is when an interviewee handed the interviewer a beer instead of a resume. This type of technical mistake could happen to anyone when using a program such as Second Life, but I certainly do not believe it would happen in real life. Just the other day when we had class in Second Life my computer froze and I could not type or see what anyone was saying. What if this happened in an interview? It could be detrimental to the outcome of whether or not one was offered a job.

I see how people would also view Second Life interviews as a more creative way to interview, but I believe it is also a lazier way. The interviewees could be sitting in bed with their pajamas on eating out of a box of cereal. I don’t believe this should be the way in which interviews are held. It requires far less effort, and therefore I believe it makes it more difficult for the interviewer to determine how much the given person actually wants the job. I believe this idea of conducting a virtual interview reflects our society’s present tendencies to take technology too far. There needs to be a point when we stop using technology for everything because it is impersonalizing life and reducing the quality of work and ethics.