As a topic within the larger corpus of materials on selection
interviewing, applicant appearance has been addressed
through advice giving, folk wisdom, and other prescrip
tions. As presented, such materials tend to undermine
opportunities for issue identification and assessment.
Through review and interpretation of that employment
interview research which addresses the relationship
between applicant appearance and interviewer selection
decisions, the purpose of this paper is to encourage those
who teach, train, and counsel others on employment inter
viewing to devote more studied attention to appearance
issues and ethics. To that end, five instructional proposi
tions are offered. Each proposition is developed through
review of related research and then capped by instructional
observations.
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