Well
I got my current post via a good recruiter and interview.
Browsing on Edugeek one afternoon, knowing I had to move on before long, and saw a position in my field. Emailed the guy a query, he asked for my CV. Emailled my CV (updated the night before, absolutely NO errors) and got a "pre-screening" interview immediately. Within ten minutes of the interview, I had him thanking me because I beat all his other potential candidates by miles.
1) I had a CV relevant to the job, not just a generic thing.
2) I knew what the acronyms meant and could provide a real-life example of my use and understanding of them.
3) I could speak on his level - he was technical but not a technician, if you get what I mean, and I could easily translate "geek" to English when asked.
4) I was well-presented and professional.
Went to the interview, with both the recruiter and his client there, and came up against two very technical employees who would be my bosses - worst nightmare because you either have to struggle to keep up yourself, or you end up having to correct them on technical points. They had a 24-point list of projects they wanted to do. I'd done all of them in the past, to the point where I was naming software I'd used/written, problems I'd run into, and *they* skipped the last eight because they were already answered by the previous 16.
I was wearing a shirt and trousers, no tie, no shined shoes, but "neat and tidy". You'd get into nightclub but probably not into the Oscars.
Got the job. Got told I was the most impressive candidate by miles. It's a private school with a strict dress code, which I tend to ignore on the whole because, as I explained in the interview, I'm more likely to be pushing cables through a hole, or hunting down the back of dusty machines than I am meeting parents (i.e. clients) face-to-face. Of course, if they *want* me to greet parents in a ripped suit with huge dust marks all over the knees, that's fine. I don't think I've ever worn anything as "smart" for work since the interview.
You don't need a huge suit to get a job. You need to be *presentable*, you need a good CV that you've had several dozen people check for you (amazing how many people are ashamed of their CV and/or secretive of it in case I copy it), you need to be the right person for the job. You *don't* need to be in a suit.