Personal example: back when I was working as a data scientist at various startups, my mother would tell me to wear a suit when interviewing. And I would be like “Mom you do not get it, that would absolutely tank my chances of getting hired except at companies so bad I don’t want to work there, the only people who wear a suit for an interview in tech are the people who don’t think they can cut it on their technical skills and the people hiring know this”. I had the skills. I was definitely playing the winners’ bracket in that particular game. Throwing in something like a suit, the sort of signal used in the losers’ bracket, would have been a terrible move.
This seems more like “your mom is wrong about what the correct interview outfit is” than “you escaped the game”. There are lots of outfits that would cost you points in start-up interviews; some people are lucky enough to have their tastes formed by the same pressures and feel like it’s natural, others have to learn the same way people have to wear a suit.
This seems more like “your mom is wrong about what the correct interview outfit is” than “you escaped the game”. There are lots of outfits that would cost you points in start-up interviews; some people are lucky enough to have their tastes formed by the same pressures and feel like it’s natural, others have to learn the same way people have to wear a suit.