The Worst Advice I Ever Gave

And now I'll tell you the worst advice I ever gave an MBA candidate.

Okay, I really cringe, but. He was on his way to an interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

I looked at the ties that he customarily wore and I thought, “Oh no. Software engineer type ties. No."

And I said, "You have to go down to Hermès and buy a tie."

That's right. He showed up in Palo Alto wearing a very lovely Hermès tie.

He said he ripped it off as soon as he saw the first person he met.

So the moral of the story here is: if you're going into an interview, think about--what do the people at that school wear?

Wear that.

P.S. Since you asked, allow me to add in my defense that his first stop was HBS. It’s not much of a defense, but.