Lesley Mallow Wendell
President, Rosewood Consulting Group

Story By:  Carol Saline

Although it’s been many years, Lesley Wendell still remembers what she wore to her first job interview at a big New York ad agency. “It was a jewel-tone Diane Von Furstenberg dress—women weren’t wearing suits back then—and I spent what seemed to me like a fortune on the stockings and pumps. The one thing I knew was that I had to look well put together.”

When she moved on to a position managing career centers at a college and morphed into the one doing the hiring, she was even more attuned to the importance of appearance. “I was keenly aware of how the interviewees looked,” she says, “and whether the person I saw in front of me would match the workplace environment. Did they look appropriate? Would they fit it? The reality is it only takes about 30 seconds to make an initial impression and a negative one is really hard to overcome. How you present yourself matters.”

Today Lesley is a successful consultant who does coaching and talent management. One of her clients called her in a panic after she’d gotten her job review. She’d been told that while her work was exemplary, she was unlikely to rise in the ranks because she didn’t look like a senior leader. Lesley sent her to a wardrobe consultant who taught her how to improve her image along with some tricks to mixing and matching clothes to create six outfits from three good pieces. Once she looked the part, the promotion followed.

That’s exactly what The Career Wardrobe does and why it’s so important, Lesley says. “A first job interview can be very intimidating. By providing someone with appropriate clothes, Career Wardrobe removes one big piece of that anxiety. It’s like having your own personal shopper to launch you and if you feel like you ‘look good,’ your confidence gets a big boost.”

Photographed By:  Jeffrey Holder, Jeffrey Holder Photography

Photographed with Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron