GUEST COMMENT: Sartorial and behavioural signposts to investment banking career success

Getting hired is about fitting in. If you don't fit, I won't hire you. Therefore, no small part of succeeding in an interview (with me) is conveying the impression that you are already 'one of the team.'

If you are attending an interview, you need to be slightly more formally dressed than the person you're meeting. However, if you are too formally dressed, you will prove repellent. I suggest you ascertain how people in the organisation are likely to be clothed by a) asking friends who work there, b) spending some time in a nearby café and watching people coming out.

A note of advice: on the trading floor it will almost always involve dark suits and white shirts. In corporate finance, it will probably involve chinos. On no account wear brown shoes.

If are given the opportunity to make physical contact with the potential employer, pay particularly close attention to your handshake. The formula is simple: three firm and steady pumps. Practice on friends and family. On no account opt for the bone crusher, particularly if your interviewer is a woman.

Watch what you do with your eyes. Remember, they are windows to the soul. Try very hard to maintain a steady gaze. Look around the room from time to time. Smile with your eyes in the manner of the father in Danny the Champion of the World. If you do none of this you will look bored, or scared, or fake.

It will not be possible to alter this once you are in the interview, so I suggest you spend several months in advance devoted to the attainment of physical perfection, or as close as you can get given a schedule which precludes going to the gym every day. You do not need to be 100% buff. However flabbiness is frowned upon.

Finally, you will require an intangible quality. Cultivate a lean and hungry look which suggests you are devoted to the achievement of this job and nurture enough self-confidence to bridge the gap between yourself and your interviewers. A mantra can help. Think Charlie Sheen: #winning.

The writer is a private equity professional who formerly worked in a well known investment bank.