{"id":15229,"date":"2014-05-26T09:30:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T14:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=15229"},"modified":"2014-05-24T21:39:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T02:39:46","slug":"free-your-wardrobe-and-the-rest-will-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=15229","title":{"rendered":"Free your wardrobe and the rest will follow!"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lauren Arnsman, Head Editor, INALJ Puerto Rico<\/a><\/em>
\npreviously published 4\/4\/13<\/em><\/p>\n

Free your wardrobe and the rest will follow!<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"laurena1\"<\/a>I have a confession: I hate wearing suits. This is one of the things that makes me most anxious about interviews (well, that list is pretty long, truthfully). Anytime I have an interview I go back and forth about wearing my (only) suit. It\u2019s a nice suit, don\u2019t get me wrong. I have a skirt and pants to go with the jacket so it can be versatile when it comes to the crazy weather changes happening in Michigan. Other reasons I\u2019ve caved to buying and wearing a suit is that most of my colleagues say to wear one to every interview. Since I\u2019ve interviewed at academic libraries, public libraries, and special libraries, it did take the guesswork out of the wardrobe equation for a while and even made sense for a while. I still never felt completely comfortable in it though.<\/strong> One of my biggest worries about interviewing is appearing confident, something that wearing my suit never truly let me do.<\/p>\n

Recently, something happened that made me rethink the whole \u201calways wear a suit\u201d thought. I no longer could wear my suit jacket or the pants. They were too big! Which is awesome but then my whole \u201cgreat, NOW what do I wear?!\u201d anxieties came back.<\/p>\n

This is where I decided to throw caution into the wind and become anti-suit.<\/strong> I should also mention that I\u2019m not a huge fan of button-down shirts, either. They just aren\u2019t my style. So after looking at sites like Librarian Wardrobe:<\/strong> http:\/\/librarianwardrobe.com\/<\/a> and Librarian Hire Fashion:<\/strong> http:\/\/librarianhirefashion.tumblr.com\/<\/a>, I felt more secure in my decision to not wear a suit. I even asked a friend who is also interviewing for library jobs what she suggested. So my new interviewing outfit would be\u2026 *drum roll*\u2026 a sensible shirt and cardigan over my (still-fitting) suit skirt! I know, I know, so basic, right? For me, it felt like freedom. The freedom to no longer worry about whether I looked confident or not, the freedom to show off my personality a little more, and, most importantly, the freedom to be comfortable yet presentable at interviews. Since the interview happened recently, I can\u2019t say for certain if my plan worked (I\u2019m now in the \u201cwaiting to hear back\u201d phase) or not. I can say that I FELT better. I didn\u2019t feel as though I was play-acting at a different, suit-wearing Lauren that only existed for certain occasions. I was my actual, professional self.<\/p>\n

So while many people may recommend you wear a suit to the interview, know that you don\u2019t have to if you don\u2019t feel comfortable (and if you to, hey, great! Suit up!). There is no specific interview uniform; something I thought existed for a long time. I have decided it\u2019s more important to be truer to you than look some kind of part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lauren Arnsman, Head Editor, INALJ Puerto Rico previously published 4\/4\/13 Free your wardrobe and the rest will follow! I have a confession: I hate wearing suits. This is one of the things that makes me most anxious about interviews (well, that list is pretty long, truthfully). Anytime I have an interview I go back…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[3986,69,3592,3674,13,3975,3871,1778,3985,5218,4246],"class_list":["post-15229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-anti-suits","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-puerto-rico","tag-interview","tag-interviewing","tag-lauren-arnsman","tag-librarian-wardrobe","tag-suits","tag-wardrobe","tag-wear"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/lauren.arnsman.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-3XD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}