College closet helps students dress for potential employers

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - Interviewing for that first big job or internship can be stressful enough for a college student.

Erin Cron doesn’t want Briar Cliff University students to also have to worry about whether they’re dressed appropriately when meeting with a potential employer.

“We want students to be really confident in those environments,” said Cron, Briar Cliff director of new student programs.

This semester, Cron’s office established Charger Closet, a growing collection of second-hand professional clothing available for free to students in need of help looking sharp when interviewing for positions or starting a job or internship.

Cron told the Sioux City Journal that she’d observed students lacking proper attire for business settings. Some just weren’t aware of the dress requirements and didn’t have much in their personal wardrobe besides jeans and T-shirts. Others couldn’t afford to buy a new outfit or two to make a good impression in what might be their first experience in a professional workplace setting.

Whatever the reason, Charger Closet provides a range of clothing from which students can assemble an outfit that will ensure they’re not under dressed. Cron said she’s seen students lose out on job opportunities because they weren’t able to dress appropriately for an interview.

“We wouldn’t want to let something like apparel prevent a student from being successful,” Cron said.

Cron and her staff converted a vacant room in her Heelan Hall office into a small boutique and, through donations, filled it with clothing racks with men’s suit jackets, ties, pants and shirts and women’s business suits, shirts and shoes. Students can come in during office hours and choose clothes, with no questions asked about what circumstances brought them there. Cron and her student staff give fashion advice.

Cassie Clark, a junior graphic design and business administration major from Carlisle, Iowa, is one of the students who have benefited. With job interviews on her horizon, Clark was concerned about having proper clothing to wear. She picked up a couple cardigans and dresses at Charger Closet.

“I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to wear,” said Clark, who works in Cron’s office, helped set up Charger Closet and also has assisted students choosing clothes.

Ron Watson, a junior psychology major from Tulsa, Oklahoma, also works in Cron’s office. He’s donated some of his dressier shirts that no longer fit and also picked up a pair of pants and a shirt for his own use. He’s found that some of the students who come to browse don’t know what’s appropriate to wear for an interview, so he’s given advice and helped them assemble an outfit. He knows one of the students he helped had a successful interview.

“Everybody’s been pretty excited,” Watson said about how Charger Closet has worked.

Approximately 20 students have utilized it thus far, and Cron expects demand to pick up in the spring, when more job, internship and graduate school interviews take place. For that reason, Charger Closet will constantly be in need of quality, contemporary business clothes like the wardrobe a recently retired female banker donated.

“It’s going to be a constant ask for us,” Cron said. “Some of the things that have come through, they’re very nice.”

Cron hopes Charger Closet can expand as more clothing is received. Once the coronavirus pandemic is past, she envisions having professional days in which students in various educational departments can come look for clothes or simply having days when she can move the clothes out into larger, higher-traffic areas to raise Charger Closet’s visibility so more students are aware of it.

Volunteers behind Charger Closet are committed to helping students dress in a way that gives them confidence to ace that interview.

“Anything that can help us elevate good to great and great to excellent, that’s what we’re trying to do with them,” Cron said.