Dude, do you want the job?

I've been interviewing candidates for jobs lately, and it's served as a reminder of how deeply we've sunk into a mire of job casualness. These days, job candidates show up on time for their interview for the most part. But from there, it's dicey.

Gone are the days when you could expect an interviewee to thank you straightaway for taking your time to consider them and meet with them. Instead, you're likely to hear, "Hey, how ya' doin'?" When that happens, I thank them for their time, hoping they'll catch the clue. One guy once responded "No prob." At least he didn't look at his watch and inform me that he could grant me 10 of his precious minutes.

Some men show up these days without ties or wearing soft-soled shoes. One time I interviewed a guy who showed up in a T-shirt. It was a short interview. Occasionally a woman will wear a cocktail dress or will desperately need to, ahem, button up. The inappropriately dressed tend to be ones who swear the most, it seems to me. And remember, we're talking about job interviews here--the moment when people are supposed to strive to make their best impression.

The first thing one job seeker asked was where he could throw away his gum. I'm grateful he had the decency not to smack his way through the interview.

In my business, one's past articles are of paramount importance. We call them "clips," and reporters used to meticulously display them on heavy paper and artfully arrange them to show depth of reporting, clarity of writing and progression of coverage. Nowadays, I'm lucky to see wrinkled photocopies, even if there's no real thought to how they're arranged or presented. Sometimes they're pulled out of pockets or purses.

Increasingly lately, when I ask for clips, reporter candidates often look at me as if I'm some neo-Luddite and say, "You know, you could just Gogle my name." Well, sure dude, I could.

I'm not alone. OfficeTeam recently put out a survey in which it asked office professionals to recount job-search blunders, and many of them had to do with overly casual attitudes. One applicant, when asked what he had been doing while unemployed, said "Staying home and watching TV." One woman immediately mentioned the days off she'd need. The survey said that more than a couple candidates seemed more interested in the benefits and vacation than the job. Others seemed clueless about the company for which they were interviewing.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to see a return to starched shirts and high heels. And I must admit that, to an extent, I've become a casualty of casualness. I don't always get back to folks as quickly as I should, for example.

Still, our assault on decorum is defining deviancy down, in the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It's easy for casual attire and casual bearing to devolve into slovenliness. As we dress more casually in the workplace, as we accept more cussing, as we busily abridge social niceties, we increasingly show disrespect for our employers, our workmates and, ultimately, our work product.

In the end, we might have to ask ourselves what value our careers are if we can't show enough respect to wear something better than a T-shirt to a job interview.

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [e-mail].