Times are tough everywhere, and Las Vegas is no stranger. With housing starts at a crawl, jobs hard to find and hard to keep, and a third local casino on the brink of bankruptcy, it is pretty much the same here as it is in other parts of the country. To get a feel for the job market, I decided to pick up the Jobs Today Weekly paper, which is put out by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and is free at local convenience stores. It is paper thin, eight pages total. Apparently the point of the paper is not so much to list employment classifieds (which it does briefly on pages 4 and 8) but to list niche websites to which to go to search for job openings. Here are the sites as listed on the front page:

LVCompouterJobs.com
LVEntertainmentJobs.com
LVTransportationJobs.com
LVLawEnforcementJobs.com
LVHospitalityJobs.com
LVClinincalJobs.com
LVNursingJobs.com
LVRealEstateJobs.com
LVSecurityJobs.com
LVEngineeringJobs.com
LVInsuranceJobs.com
LVSeniorJobs.com
LVOfficeJobs.com
LVRetailJobs.com
LVSalesJobs.com
LVTeachingJobs.com
LVMedicalJobs.com
LVPartTimeJobs.com
LVCustomerServiceJobs.com
LVCasinoJobs.com
LVConstructionJobs.com
LVDiversityJobs.com
LVAccountingJobs.com
LVStudentJobs.com

The JOBSeekers Tip File article of the week was “Unbreakable Interviewing Rules #1-5”, with 6 through 10 offered the following week. Rules 1 through 5 are geared to assist those individuals who are lucky enough to land a job interview. “Succeed WITH them – or fail WITHOUT them!” advises author Eli Amdur.

Rule Number One

Rule 1 recommends that the job applicant “look like the professional they want to hire”. In an effort to win over the employer with a positive lasting impression, Amdur recommends that men wear a blue suit, white shirt, and a small (foulard) pattern or striped tie. He suggests men err on the side of conventional and classic dress, leaving more creative ensembles for another time. Women are encouraged to wear blue as well, with pants or a skirt, and a white blouse.

Dark Suit, White Shirt & Conservative Tie

I tend to agree with Amdur, although if a person already owns a black suit, they shouldn’t feel it necessary to purchase a blue suit. Black will work just fine. In fact, I prefer black over blue since most everyone will look good in a black suit, which may not be the case with blue or navy blue. And everything matches black. White shirts are definitely the way to go. Amdur is right about the neckties, too. The smaller the overall pattern, the more classic and professional the look. The larger the pattern, the more youthful the look. If you don’t believe me, just picture over sized polka dot ties that clowns wear to children’s parties. Now picture pin dot ties. Of course, I believe a person can deviate a bit depending on the job they are interviewing for. For the fashion forward crowd, mens thin narrow neckties are back in style, and if one sticks with nothing narrower than 3 inches, all the rules still apply.

Matching Advice with Photo Spreads

I was a bit disappointed to find on the next page a spread for a job fair with a photograph of men and women basically breaking all the rules listed on the previous page! Not one of the five pictured men was wearing a suit jacket or a white shirt! Some of the men weren’t even wearing ties! None of the women were dressed in blue suits or white blouses. Most were wearing casual shirts and white or khaki pants as if they were headed out to run an errand. Whoever chose the stock photo chose poorly. After all, this is an advertisement for a local career fair, not a county fair!

It would have been better had this circular followed through on the next page with good examples of appropriate dress code for that first good impression at a job interview. Every race and age group was represented, this allowing for the viewer to identify with and emulate a winning dress code. It was a perfect opportunity lost, but hey, this is a free paper, and you do get what you pay for.

April 2009

Wearing The Right Necktie Makes A Difference At Job Interviews by Strangelittlebird is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.