if someone can't handle the stress of the interview, how are they going to handle the stress of a life threatening situation??
What has this to do with appropriate dress for an interview?
Perhaps you are one of those individuals who gets a kick out of the way you dress, and finds solace in Armani suits and similar such designer labels. Insofar as it goes, that's fine - but don't bring your prejudices to this forum. If you want to look like an escapee from the Harrods menswear department at your interview with me, and feel comfortable doing so, that's OK by me. Please understand that I will not be giving you extra points over and above the candidate who is averagely and appropriately smart. I will not be measuring how far your tie dangles, or giving a damn about where you got your shoes, or whether your cufflinks are a particularly fine example of designer chic.
I want to know what your personality is like; whether I can work with you for up to 16 hours at a time, and whether you have the technical knowlege and intelligence to attempt the training I will require you to undertake. I will find out about your ability to handle stress in the simulator, not from what you wear or how you wear it. In fact, I would be somewhat suspicious of a candidate who has spent as much if not more time on deciding what to wear, and how to wear it, as he has on preparing mentally for the interview ahead. I would have to question that individual's grasp of the priorities at hand, and wonder if he might employ similarly inappropriate decision making in the flight deck.
Your dress is just a small part of the overall assessment that will be made of you at interview. As long as you are adequately smart, your interviewers will be concentrating on much more salient aspects of you as a person and a pilot. If your dress is a distraction, either by being conspicuously scruffy, or by being conspicuously expensive or time consuming, it will go against you.
Scroggs