Brazilian Business Atire Basics

If you’re planning to stick around in Brazil and you’re looking to find a job there, there’s a couple things to keep in mind while on your job search. In Brazilian culture, how you dress yourself is very important. To them in their business culture, how you dress reflects on the company itself. You can expect their business wear to be very similar in taste and expectations as the United States. But one different emphasis in Brazil is that for women, it is essential that they still dress formally while retaining their femininity. This is especially the case in the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil: Business Dress). But for other cities in the northwest region of Brazil, their business dress is slightly less informal where business casual is the norm.

For those looking into the law and business fields, expect to dress very formally for work. Some tips for men is to avoid wearing any ties with drawings, figures, and that are too colorful. This is to ensure that you’re projecting a serious image. So men, don’t expect to be taken very seriously if you decide to wear your favorite superhero tie to an interview or work. For women, it is considered a cultural norm for women to constantly have their nails kept well and polished. This makes nail polish chips all the more stressful women. Heavy makeup is often frowned upon in the work environment. One final tip for business dress that applies to both men and women, is to never wear the combination of the Brazilian flag in a single outfit. Brazilians deem this as an unsuitable color combination.

One important factor to keep in mind, besides the importance of how you dress, is that Brazil is on the higher end of the power distance scale. Power distance refers to the belief and attitude that all individuals in society aren’t equal, and the less powerful member within society expect and accept power to be distributed unequally (Martin & Nakayama). Brazil tends to fall on the higher end on the power distance scale with a score of 69, with the belief that hierarchies are to be respected and inequalities are acceptable. They also place a high importance on showing respect to the elderly (Brazil). In the work setting, there is a single boss that shoulders all the responsibility.

Learning all these nuances in Brazilian culture is important. People that help educate others going abroad with information and tips for dealing with these culture differences, is becoming even more important with so many people traveling and staying in foreign places for extended amounts of time (Martin & Nakayama). These cross cultural trainers can and often are the difference in whether someone is able to adjust to a foreign country. In the case of those that want to stay for a long time in these foreign countries, it could affect their likelihood of landing a job. This is especially vital training for those that are planning to go into jobs that interact with a lot of people in Brazil.