Dress For Success + Tips On Dressing & Preparing For An Interview

Photography by Madi Flournoy Henderson

DRESS C/O || HEELS || BAG C/O 

I'm excited to team up with Vanity Fair lingerie today to share more about Dress for Success as well as share some of my personal tips around dressing & preparing for an interview!

If you aren't familiar with Vanity Fair lingerie, I encourage you to read my first impressions post HERE.  I've been wearing my new Vanity Fair bras for approximately the last 4 weeks and I can't tell you how much I love them.  After having a professional fitting, I feel so much more confident in the bras that I am wearing on a daily basis.  Hope you will take a few minutes to read about my experience.

Okay...let's chat a little bit about Dress for Success!  I've always been familiar with Dress for Success so I'm super excited to share more about this not-for-profit organization.

Dress for Success "empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire, and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life."  They teach women the tools to help them get bak to work and assist them in remaining employed.  Dress for success can be found in almost 145 cities throughout 20 countries.  Even more impressive, they have service more than 925,000 women in their 19 years of operation!

Dress for Success has several "signature programs" but the two that I've always known about include their Suiting Program and their Career Center.  As many of of know, preparing for an interview often times means having access to clothing and resources to present yourself in a professional manor, which is exactly what their Suiting Program does.  To help prepare themselves for an interview, each client works directly with a trained volunteer personal shopper  to ensure that they have the appropriate outfit, makeup, accessories, and footwear to feel confident when they attend an interview.

The second signature program is their Career Center program which helps prepare the women with interviewing skills, preparation of a professional cover letter and resume, as well as access to their professional skills training course.

Dress for Success has had such great results helping women get back into the workforce and the work they do through partnerships with companies like Vanity Fair lingerie is truly admirable and very impressive.

I'd also like to share my personal tips for dressing for & preparing for an interview.  Some of you may not know this, but I work within HR for a large worldwide bank institution and interviewing candidates for various roles with our company is something that I do on a daily basis.

PREPARING FOR & DRESSING FOR AN INTERVIEW:

1)  Ensure that you have professional attire to wear...this could be a pants suit, a dress (similar to something like I am wearing in this post), and skirt and blouse, etc.  Some may say dress for the type of job that you are interviewing for (which in some instances I agree) however, I would always recommend dressing more professional than not. You can never be overdressed for a job interview!  Keep your pieces simple...stick with black, navy, grey, etc.  Ensure that your outfit is pressed too!  Although I am wearing open toe shoes in this post, I actually would recommend wearing close to shoes to an interview.

2)  Wear comfortable undergarments.  In today's post, I am wearing my Comfort X 3 bra from Vanity Fair...not only is it comfortable but it stays in place.  The last thing you want is to find yourself adjusting your undergarments or feeling self conscious because your bra strap may show or something of that nature.

3)  Wear minimal accessories.  If wearing earrings, wear stud earrings (this is not a time to pull out your gorgeous statement earrings) and don't pile on your best arm party.  Accessories can be a distraction for both you and the Interviewer and you may find yourself fidgeting with them if you get nervous.  Minimal is always best.

4) Don't overdue your makeup.  Of course, wear what makes you feel comfortable but if you tend to normally wear heavy eye makeup for example, I recommend softening your look a little bit for an interview.  Makeup can also be a distraction.  Wearing a more neutral lip color is also recommended.  As much as I love a bold red lip, there is a time and place for that...plus you wouldn't want to be self conscious in the case that a little red lipstick has found its way onto your teeth.

5)  Wear your hair in a way that keeps it out of your face and keeps you from fidgeting with it as well.  Simple is always best and if you tend to fidget with your hair when you get nervous, you should consider wearing it in a sleek low ponytail or a style that keeps it out of reach.

6)  Ensure that your cover letter and resume is up-to-date and take several copies, on resume paper, with you to your interview.  You always want to have a copy of your resume in front of yourself so you can also reference it throughout the interview.

7)  Learn as much as possible about the company and the position that you are interviewing for and also know why YOU are the best candidate for the job.  You do not need to memorize company facts or statistics, etc but you do need to be able to speak with confidence when answering the question "What interests you in working for XYZ company?".

8)  Role play...it never hurts to sit down and role play with a friend or a family member.  Have someone ask you interview questions...this helps get your mind thinking and helps you preplan how you may answer a similar question during the interview.  

9)  Prepare some questions to ask your Interviewer at the end of the interview.  I always recommend preparing 2-3 job related questions to ask at the end of an interview.  This not only says that you are prepared in general but it also further demonstrates your interest in the role/company and learning more about it.

So now that I have shared more about Dress for Success as well as shared some of my own personal tips, I'd love to hear from you!  Do you have any interview tips to share?  If you have any questions, please leave your question/s in the comments below and I will be sure to answer them.

If you would like to get to know more about Dress for Success, you may simply visit their website and/or follow along on their social media channels.

Also...you may find Vanity Fair's amazing bras at Kohl's or Macy's and right now they are running a BOGO 1/2 off sale!  Now's the time stock up on some gorgeous new Vanity Fair bras!

As always, thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful day!

*Thank you Vanity Fair lingerie for partnering on today's post!  All tips and opinions shared are 100% my own.  It's partnerships like these that help make KBStyled possible.