Interview Outfits by Industry: What 29 Employers Actually Tell You to Wear

The interview is booked for Thursday, and one question is left. The safest interview outfits match what the employer itself publishes. Banks and Big 4 firms ask for smart or professional dress, mostly business casual where they name a level. Microsoft, Amazon and McDonald’s say wear what is comfortable. Check the careers page first.

Our newsroom read the interview advice that 29 large employers publish on their own websites, from JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs to Microsoft, Aldi and McDonald’s. Every quote below links to the page it came from, and we checked each one on 31 October 2026.

What We Found

Of 29 large employers whose own interview advice we read, ten say dress smartly or professionally without naming a standard, eight say nothing about clothes, and just four name a single dress level, three of them business casual.

Three recommend business casual: EY, Salesforce and the engineering division of Goldman Sachs. The fourth, JPMorganChase, recommends professional business attire, but only in its answer on recorded video interviews. Four employers, Microsoft, Amazon, Procter & Gamble and McDonald’s, tell candidates to wear what is comfortable or say appearance will not count. Three more say it depends on the role you are applying for.

Only two pages we read suggest a suit for the interview itself, both regional: Deloitte South Africa and PwC Singapore. Both offer a suit as one acceptable choice beside business casual. A firm-wide instruction to wear a suit did not turn up anywhere in our sample.

The biggest group is the vague one. Ten employers tell you to dress smartly, professionally or “on the side of smartness” and stop there. That leaves the definition to you. The sections below set out interview outfits sector by sector, using the employers that do name a standard.

Interview Outfits by Industry, in the Employers’ Own Words

The first table counts the advice by sector. The second gives every employer, a short quote and a link to the page we read.

Sector	Employers checked	Formal	Business casual	General, no level	Comfortable	Depends on role	Not stated
Banking	8	1	1	5	0	0	1
Big 4 and Accenture	5	0	1	4	0	0	0
Strategy consulting	2	0	0	0	0	0	2
Technology	5	0	1	0	2	1	1
Consumer goods and health	6	0	0	1	1	1	3
Retail and restaurants	3	0	0	0	1	1	1
Total	29	1	3	10	4	3	8

Employer	Sector	What the page says	Our category	Source
JPMorganChase	Banking	“professional business attire and a distraction-free environment are recommended” (recorded video interviews)	Formal	How we hire FAQs
Goldman Sachs	Banking	“We suggest business casual for your interview” (Engineering)	Business casual	Interview Preparation
Morgan Stanley	Banking	“Be very polished”, and avoid “jeans and trainers”	General, no level	10 Biggest Interview Mistakes
Bank of America	Banking	“Remember to dress for the position you want”	General, no level	Grow Your Career guide
Barclays	Banking	“Always dress on the side of smartness unless certain otherwise”	General, no level	Interview skills handout
NatWest Group	Banking	“Make sure you dress smartly”	General, no level	12 tips to prepare
UBS	Banking	“Dress professionally (even for a video interview)”	General, no level	Interview checklist
Capital One	Banking	Lighting and surroundings only	Not stated	Virtual interview tips
Deloitte	Big 4	“Dress for success just like you would for an in-person interview”	General, no level	Video Interview Tips (US)
PwC	Big 4	“Dress in appropriate business wear”	General, no level	What to expect (UK)
EY	Big 4	“We recommend business casual attire”	Business casual	Tips for your EY interviews
KPMG	Big 4	“Wear professional clothing and accessories”	General, no level	KPMG US Careers
Accenture	Consulting	“Dress up rather than down”	General, no level	5 Tips for Interview Success
McKinsey & Company	Strategy consulting	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	Interviewing at McKinsey
Bain & Company	Strategy consulting	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	Interviewing
Microsoft	Technology	“Wear whatever makes you most comfortable”	Comfortable	Interview tips
Amazon	Technology	“Wear what makes you comfortable and confident”	Comfortable	In-person interview preparation
Salesforce	Technology	“Plan to dress business casual”	Business casual	Navigating your interview
IBM	Technology	“Dress the part you are interviewing for” (an IBM employee, on IBM’s careers blog)	Depends on role	IBM Careers Blog
Google	Technology	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	Our hiring process
Procter & Gamble	Consumer goods	“Your physical appearance will not impact your application”	Comfortable	P&G Hiring FAQ
Nestle	Consumer goods	“please ask your recruiter about what is appropriate for the role”	Depends on role	Jobs FAQs
PepsiCo	Consumer goods	“Dress as you would do for an in-person interview”	General, no level	Applicant help
Unilever	Consumer goods	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	Interview Tips
L’Oreal	Consumer goods	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	Interview at L’Oreal
Johnson & Johnson	Consumer goods and health	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	First-round interview tips
Aldi (US)	Retail	Casual for stores, “business professional attire” for corporate	Depends on role	Careers FAQ
McDonald’s (UK)	Restaurants	“please wear practical clothing and footwear”	Comfortable	What shall I wear?
Target	Retail	Nothing on clothes	Not stated	Interview Guide

Read “general, no level” as smart office clothing with the exact standard left to you. Read “not stated” as a prompt to ask the recruiter, which is the subject of a later section.

What Should You Wear to a Bank Interview?

Wear a dark suit or a tailored jacket and trousers, and keep everything plain. Of the eight banks we checked, only JPMorganChase names professional business attire, and only for recorded video interviews. Goldman Sachs suggests business casual for engineering. The rest say dress smartly or professionally, so the conservative end of smart is the safe reading.

Morgan Stanley is the most direct of the eight. Its list of interview mistakes includes “wearing jeans and trainers”, and an interviewer quoted on the page says “Be very polished” because the firm is “assessing how you would hold yourself in front of clients and other employees.” Its video interview advice adds that “Dark blue and other subtle solids are your best bet.”

Barclays gives the best single rule in the sample. Its interview skills handout says “Try to dress to fit the company/role on offer, not your old or current one.” A candidate moving from a start-up to a bank should dress for the bank, however relaxed the old office was.

Bank of America’s career guide tells candidates to “dress for the position you want” and to make sure clothing is clean and free of wrinkles and tears. NatWest Group suggests planning the outfit the night before. UBS says dress professionally even when the interview is on video.

Capital One’s virtual interview tips say nothing about clothes at all, and spend their attention on lighting instead: sit near a window or a bright lamp “so your face is illuminated.” For a bank, that silence is no invitation to dress down. Read it as one more reason to choose the plain, dark option.

Senior banking interviews also test how you lead, and the clothes only buy you the first minute. Our primers on leadership theories and on transactional leadership are useful preparation for the inevitable question about your management style.

What Do the Big 4 and Strategy Firms Tell Candidates?

Business casual or a little smarter. EY recommends business casual outright. KPMG US says wear professional clothing, while KPMG Canada recommends business casual. Deloitte US tells video candidates to dress as they would in person, from head to toe. PwC UK asks for appropriate business wear. McKinsey and Bain say nothing about clothes on their interviewing pages.

The Big 4 publish different advice in different countries, which is why our main table uses one page per firm and the dataset notes record the rest. Deloitte South Africa says “when in doubt, overdress” and that business casual is the trend, “but it’s still appropriate to wear a business suit.” PwC Singapore says professional attire “generally means a suit or business casual wear.”

KPMG’s own pages pull in two directions. Its Canadian application guide says “We recommend dressing business casual.” A KPMG guide published in India says “When in doubt, go for corporate/business/formal attire and footwear.” If you are applying in one country, use that country’s page.

Accenture’s careers blog puts the logic plainly: “Dress up rather than down. It is always better to be overdressed than underdressed.” Deloitte’s US video advice goes further and warns candidates not to assume they will only need business attire from the waist up.

The strategy firms are quiet. McKinsey’s interviewing page tells candidates to “Relax and be yourself”, which is about manner, and Bain’s interviewing page has nothing on dress. Both pages spend that space on how the interviews work, so put your preparation there.

For the wider picture of how these firms differ, our guide to the big 4 consulting firms covers what each one does and how they hire. When a firm says nothing about clothes, read how it describes its purpose instead. Our guide to the business mission statement explains what that page reveals about a company.

What Should You Wear to a Tech Interview?

Smart casual, unless you are told otherwise. Microsoft says you do not need to dress up and should wear whatever makes you most comfortable. Amazon says wear what makes you comfortable and confident. Salesforce asks university candidates for business casual, slacks and a button-down. On IBM’s careers blog, an IBM systems administrator advises candidates to dress the part.

Amazon’s preparation guide is the clearest statement in the sample: “At Amazon, we focus on your ideas and experiences, not your outfit choice.” Microsoft files its advice under the heading “Be yourself”. Google’s hiring process page says nothing on clothes.

Comfortable still means clean and chosen on purpose. A pressed shirt or a fine knit, dark trousers or chinos and clean leather shoes will look right in almost any tech office and will not mark you as someone who misread the company. Our guide to the smart casual dress code for men covers the pieces in detail.

That employee’s line on the IBM blog, “Dress the part you are interviewing for”, is the useful one for senior candidates. It is one person’s tip rather than company policy, but the logic holds. A director interviewing for a client-facing role at a tech company should dress for the client meetings that role involves.

AI assistants can summarise a company’s culture pages quickly, and our roundup of the best chatgpt alternative tools covers several. Check what they tell you against the employer’s own page, because a summary can miss a single line about dress.

Retail, Restaurants and Consumer Brands

Aldi’s US careers page is the best example of advice split by job. Store candidates are told to wear “neat, clean and comfortable casual clothing”, with jeans or slacks, closed-toe shoes and a polo given as an example. Warehouse candidates may face a lift test, so “attire that is flexible and breathable is encouraged.” Corporate candidates are asked for “business professional attire.”

McDonald’s UK tells candidates “We want you to feel comfortable at your interview” and asks for practical clothing and footwear, because the interview may include a stint working in the restaurant. It will provide a uniform if you ask beforehand.

The consumer brands mostly hand the question back to you. Nestle says what you wear at work depends on the job and asks candidates to check with their recruiter. PepsiCo says dress for a video interview as you would in person, without saying what that is. Procter & Gamble’s hiring FAQ says “Your physical appearance will not impact your application.”

Unilever, L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson and Target publish interview advice that says nothing about clothes. The Starbucks careers FAQ describes its work dress code, built around the green apron, and stops there.

For a head office role at any of these companies, smart business casual is the sensible default. For a store or restaurant role, clean and practical beats formal, and Aldi’s own example shows how relaxed that can be.

What Counts as Professional Interview Attire?

Professional interview attire means clean, pressed, well-fitting clothes in plain dark or neutral colours, one step smarter than the team wears every day. For most office roles that is a tailored jacket with trousers or a skirt and polished shoes. Bank of America’s guide puts the test simply: dress for the position you want.

Ten employers in our sample use words such as “professional”, “smart” or “business wear” without defining them, so the definition is yours to supply. The two rules the employers do give point the same way. Deloitte South Africa says overdress when in doubt, and Accenture says it is better to be overdressed than underdressed.

Colour and fit carry more weight than price. Morgan Stanley’s preference for dark blue and subtle solids is a sensible default anywhere, and a jacket that fits at the shoulders reads as more senior than an expensive one that does not.

Finish with the shoes, because they sit in plain view whenever you are seated. Clean, polished leather in brown, oxblood or black works with every outfit in this guide.

The first minute matters because people judge it quickly and then look for evidence to support the judgement. The bias chapters in our summary of the art of thinking clearly explain why a strong first impression tends to colour everything that follows.

If the interview needs a flight, pack the shirt so it arrives without creases. Our guide on how to fold a business shirt for travel shows the method, and a hotel iron fixes the rest.

What Should You Wear to a Video Interview?

The same as you would in person, from head to toe. Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, PepsiCo and Barclays all tell candidates to dress as they would for a face-to-face interview, and UBS says dress professionally even on video. Deloitte adds a practical warning: take the time to get fully dressed, or you may risk an embarrassing interview moment.

Goldman Sachs also suggests keeping the camera at eye level, showing your head and shoulders. That framing makes the collar, the neckline and the jacket shoulders the whole outfit, so those are the pieces to get right.

Solid colours behave better on camera than fine stripes or small checks, which can shimmer. Morgan Stanley’s advice to avoid “loud colors and busy prints” applies twice over on a screen.

JPMorganChase asks for professional business attire on recorded video interviews. It is the only employer in our sample whose one dress instruction is a formal standard; Aldi asks for business professional attire from corporate candidates only. A recorded answer can be replayed by several reviewers, so dress for the most senior of them.

The Night Before and the Morning Of

Plan the outfit the night before, as NatWest Group suggests, and try it on. A missing button found at 7am costs more than a missing button found at 9pm.

Then protect your sleep, because a rested face does more for you than any tie. Our piece on whether women need more sleep than men covers what the research says about how much you need.

On the morning itself, a short morning exercise routine can settle nerves, as long as you leave time to cool down before you put the shirt on.

Preparation for the conversation matters more than the clothes, and the best of it is specific to the company. If the business is run by a famous founder, read what that founder reads. Our list of elon musk books is one example of how a reading list can show the ideas a leader returns to.

After the Outfit, the Offer

Good interview outfits get you through the first minute. The offer conversation comes later, and our guide on how to negotiate salary covers how to handle it.

Look past the base pay, because retirement matching is part of the package too. Our guides to ira vs 401k and roth vs traditional ira explain the accounts an employer plan sits beside.

Career changers face a second test, because the interviewer will ask how the new skills were built. If yours came from study alongside a job, our review of online universities for working adults covers which degrees employers check and why.

Independent consultants pitching for a contract face the same dress question with no careers page to read. Dress one step above the client’s team, and set the business up properly before the first invoice. Our comparison of sole proprietorship vs llc covers that choice.

How We Did This

On 31 October 2026 we read the interview advice that 29 large employers publish on their own careers sites, blogs and downloadable guides, across banking, the Big 4 and Accenture, strategy consulting, technology, consumer goods and retail. We chose well-known employers that publish interview tips, recorded what each page says about clothes, and sorted it into six categories. Where a firm publishes different country pages, we used its US page when one addressed dress, otherwise the home-market or first official page we could load, and recorded the others in our notes. An employer counts as “not stated” only if we read its interview-advice page and found nothing on clothes. Pages that would not load, including BCG and Oliver Wyman, were dropped. The full dataset, with the supporting quote and source for every row, is available on request.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to wear a suit to an interview?

Rarely, on the employers’ own advice. None of the 29 pages we used tells candidates to wear a suit as its main instruction. A suit is still a safe choice for banking, law and senior client-facing roles, and two regional pages, Deloitte South Africa and PwC Singapore, list one as appropriate.

What does business casual mean for an interview?

Salesforce defines it as slacks and a button-down shirt, and EY and Goldman Sachs engineering recommend it without a definition. In practice it means tailored trousers or a skirt, a collared shirt or fine knit, and clean leather shoes. A jacket is optional, but it makes the outfit read as interview clothing.

Is it acceptable to ask the recruiter what to wear?

Yes. Nestle tells candidates to do exactly that, and Morgan Stanley’s video advice tells candidates to check the corporate website for dress codes. One line by email is enough, and it shows you prepare properly.

The employers have mostly left the choice to you, so make it the way the best of their advice suggests: dress for the job on offer, one step smarter than the people already doing it.