People decide if you're successful within 5 seconds of meeting you - here's how to look the part
Lintao Zhang / Getty
Including at work.
Research suggests that colleagues and would-be clients make snap assessments about your earning potential, chance of getting promoted, and level of success.
In a 2011 Canadian study, 87 university students were shown photos of a man in professional or casual dress, and were asked what they expected his workplace outcomes to be.
The differences were obvious. Not only were the well-dressed men expected to make more money, they were expected to be promoted more rapidly. Meanwhile, the sloppily dressed guys were expected to receive more verbal harassment at work.
In a 2013 British-Turkish study, 274 participants had five seconds to look to at photos of men wearing suits - one group in tailored garb, the other in off-the-peg outfits.
The results may make you want to visit a tailor.
"The man was rated more positively on all attributes apart from trustworthiness when pictured in the bespoke suit," the authors wrote. "On the evidence of this study it appears men may be advised to purchase clothing that is well-tailored, as it can positively enhance the image they communicate to others."
Sexism is present here, too. A 1990 study found that when women dress more masculinely - straight silhouettes, angular lines, and dark colors - they are considered to be more hireable than women in more flowing, feminine garb.
So what can we do with all this info?
Here's what the experts advise:
Look like you care about how you look. "Carelessness seems to signal that you don't respect your coworkers or yourself," says Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of "Executive Presence." "You certainly don't respect the client if you show up with soup on your tie or bitten nails, anything to make you look unkempt."
Tailor your look to the situation. "If it's Microsoft, it's one outfit; in the US Army, it's another," says longtime executive recruiter Russell Reynolds. "You have to look like you belong to the group, [and] you have to look a little better than the group." To do that, Hewlett says to "pattern yourself" after someone who's particularly good at dressing a bit better than the rest of the group.
Stay away from the suggestive. "For women, a major blunder is sexually provocative clothing," Hewlett says. "It's tremendously undermining of your gravitas, because it's either distracting or threatening. No matter your projection of your capabilities, if your skirt is too short or your neckline too plunging, you get struck off the list for a big client meeting or a promotion."
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- Saudi Arabia wants China to help fund its struggling $500 billion Neom megaproject. Investors may not be too excited.
- Colon cancer rates are rising in young people. If you have two symptoms you should get a colonoscopy, a GI oncologist says.
- Hyundai plans to scale up production capacity, introduce more EVs in India
- FSSAI in process of collecting pan-India samples of Nestle's Cerelac baby cereals: CEO
- Narcissistic top management leads to poor employee retention, shows research
- Audi to hike vehicle prices by up to 2% from June
- Kotak Mahindra Bank shares tank 13%; mcap erodes by ₹37,721 crore post RBI action