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Topic: Does your looks hurt your chances at getting a job
| Author | Message |
| WordyBird | Posted – 6/3/2008 5:10:08 PM | show profile Well, I'm glad that I read through this to see that Bree is not a writer or editor, because I had every intention of responding thusly: No, but your grammar do. Dang. I hate missing the opportunity for a one-liner. Anyway, Bree, when it comes to looks, it depends on the person hiring you and if that person is unprofessional enough to consider them when making a hiring decision. Yes, it is human nature to go with the symmetrical and those whose appearances give the impression of biological health, fertility, and fitness (read: "beautiful"), all other things being equal, but it's never a case of all other things being equal. That's why your resume and your ability to project your confidence in your skills is so important. In fact--and I've mentoned this on another board--being too pretty can work against a candidate as well. Really, what matters as far as looks go is how polished you are, and that includes what you wear, how you walk, how you speak, and how you carry yourself. You can never go wrong with "professional" and "put together," even if you did have that third eye in the middle of your forehead. Good luck! |
| WordyBird | Posted – 6/3/2008 5:11:22 PM | show profile "That's why your resume and your ability to project your confidence in your skills is so important." ...ARE so important. SEE? Heh! |
| leprechaunsy | Posted – 6/3/2008 5:18:46 PM | show profile Vox-o I can't tell you how many nights I've missed the gym BECAUSE of my devotion to my job. |
| mkelly | Posted – 6/3/2008 5:23:07 PM | show profile Bree reminds me... I have to stop by the local journalism school and tell the department chairman he's churning out a bunch of kids who just don't get it, and just won't make the cut. |
| lolita995 | Posted – 6/3/2008 6:00:55 PM | show profile | email poster Chiming In Bree, I completely understand your post. I am currently seeking internships in the magazine publishing arena. My main focus is beauty. With each resume sent, I battle with inner-demons and my own self-doubt. I am a full-figured girl and I always wonder: "If I make it to an interview, will my size eliminate me from being considered." I have to remind myself that regardless of dress size, what truly matters is the size of my determination, talent and passion. I've landed two awesome internships (Cosmogirl! and Marie Claire) and NOT once did my size alter my ability to perform my duties. I was blessed that my editors looked at my talent, willingness to learn and my love for publishing. PLEASE don't let self-doubt keep you from obtaining your dreams. Your scar does not define you. Yet, it has helped to make you who you are. You are obviously a survivor. Stop seeing it as a flaw. Embrace it. That scar tells a story. It is a story you need to share. Now, to touch upon the grammar/writing debate. Grammar and writing and your ability to communicate effectively are the very foundation of publishing. Yes, this board is informal and no one is grading you. As a writer or a publishing professional, you're "on-call" at all times. Your words are all you have. It is your livelihood. Always remember that. Be it on this message board or on a cover letter, be mindful that in an industry built upon words, each letter carries weight and has an impact. As writer, we live by this mantra: "check, re-check and check once more." I believe that is the point. It may seem silly, but once you've identified yourself as a writer, people hold you to a certain standard. I've become a walking dictionary for my friends and family. My last advice is to be sure to research the arena. Make sure you have a full understanding of the industry. This board has helped me tremendously. I read posts and I pick up hints and tips all the time. Being a writer includes the ability to take criticism and the thirst to learn new things! Good luck to you in your job search! |
| foodlit | Posted – 6/3/2008 6:35:14 PM | show profile Bree, Yes, your looks could hurt your chances of getting a job. Looks are a factor, one of many. If you're especially good looking, you have an edge. If you're especially unattractive, then it may be a hurdle you'll have to overcome by being better than your good looking competition. Hiring is completely subjective, there are so many things that go into the decision making process, and looks is just one factor that sometimes matters more than others. |
| Marie | Posted – 6/3/2008 9:12:09 PM | show profile In case this wasn't said yet, your grammar has nothing to do with your scar. What the poster meant was that perhaps your scar has nothing to do with why you're not getting hired, but your bad grammar and writing does. That's all. All the poster meant was that you might be focusing on the wrong reason for not getting hired. |
| seeattleme2 | Posted – 6/3/2008 10:23:52 PM | show profile Bad grammar will keep you from getting a job. Bad grammar on a media bistro post will have no effect on your getting a job or not. Hopefully this is just recreation and you are too busy doing shit in between looking for jobs (cover letters, resumes etc) to be spending time spell checking and grammar proofing your media bistro posts. For fucks sake! |
| seeattleme2 | Posted – 6/3/2008 10:29:32 PM | show profile and, not for nothing, Padma lakshmi (spelling probably wrong, go ahead and call me an idiot, I'm not going back on msn to fucking spell check it for a bunch of no lifes) has a huge scra on her arm. She is a supermodel and a book author (albeit a cookbook) but still considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. she of course talks about her scar all the time. Perhaps that's what you need to do. At your next interview, Bree, find a way to explain it in the course of the interview. It shouldn't be that hard. People manage to mention all sorts of private information in professional situations. You could talk about an accident you were in, point out the scar, and talk about what it "taught you" or "meant to" you. |
| Vox-o | Posted – 6/4/2008 12:08:33 AM | show profile leprechaunsy You don't work more than me. Believe me. I choose to not cut back on the time I spend dedicated to my personal health & fitness. Of course, there are only so many hours in the day, so something is going to slip. Personally, my apartment is a pig pen. (It's tragic, really.) Maybe yours is a lot cleaner than mine, who knows. But it's your choice, yet I will still judge you for being more than 10% overweight (or so). 10% is being busy, beyond that is slacking. And you know what? Most hiring managers in major cities view being overweight as a strike against you, even if they don't admit it. |
| MyPublicistIsHot | Posted – 6/4/2008 1:36:16 AM | show profile Another suggestion you need but won't take Perhaps before going on any more job interviews, you should meet with a good therapist. They can help you see that your own attitude, and not your face, is what really stifles you from the success you claim you want. |
| ferdinand | Posted – 6/4/2008 2:04:49 AM | show profile I wouldn't hire anybody whose home was a shit-hole mess. How do I know they're not going to make the office into a pig sty? Seriously, though, many people have character flaws that are invisible - eg, smoking or wife-beating. I'm not going to bother arguing your premise about fatness being a character flaw, Vox-o, but even if one accepts it, then the only difference between the fat people and the wife-beaters is that their character flaws, though somewhat less damning, are rather more visible. |
| snappiness | Posted – 6/4/2008 7:12:09 AM | show profile grammar police Jumping on the "opinionated" bandwagon: If I were lazy about grammar in "relaxed" settings (So, a bunch of writers and editors chatting is the time to let your hair down about grammar? Uh, really?) then I'd never trust myself to automatically pull it together in a professional setting. If you're a writer, then grammar is your foundation, it should be ingrained. Being lazy about it at all is like a carpenter leaving tools out in the rain and then saying, "Yeah, but if I were on the job I wouldn't do that." Bad habits and laziness have a way of showing when you don't want them to. If you're not picky about word choice and grammar, then you're just not a writer. |
| andthereiwas | Posted – 6/4/2008 10:41:39 AM | show profile Eat to live, not live to eat Vox-o and Blackberry are the only ones here making sense. Of course I would never hire an overweight person. Why do you think there are no laws against it? Because even the government recognizes that fat people are undisciplined and wouldn't force an employer to take them on just because they are pitied. Fat people bring a workplace down in so many ways, too many to list here. You can call me an asshole too, but that's only because you know I'm right. Fat people have no discipline. I would never trust them in a position of financial authority when they can't control their own eating habits. |
| chucho | Posted – 6/4/2008 10:42:23 AM | show profile >> In case this wasn't said yet, your grammar has nothing to do with your scar. What the poster meant was that perhaps your scar has nothing to do with why you're not getting hired, but your bad grammar and writing does. << I want to address this: Yes, bad grammar will cost you a potential job, as will a cell phone ringing during an interview, not enough eye contact, dumb answers, or a ketchup stain on your clothes. However, people who are fat/disfigured/handicapped/etc. are often put at a 'higher bar', so to speak. In other words: a mistake in grammar is more forgivable if the candidate is a perfect physical specimen and did everything else right. For a cripple or a fattie or whatever it will often be the "ha-ha gotcha" moment. Workplace discrimination is illegal -- and employers often are specifically looking for the "gotcha" moment not to hire fatties/cripples/etc. If the person looks like Michelangelo's David, the interviewer is far more likely to look past a minor mistake If the person look like the fat guy in the TV show "Lost" then a mistake will cost more because it will be a justifiable reason not to hire the person (when inside the interviewers mind it has more to do with the person's look than the mistake). So, moral of the story: fatties/cripples/etc. must be far more careful in these job interviews to do everything perfectly than the beautiful people, IMO. |
| andthereiwas | Posted – 6/4/2008 10:56:30 AM | show profile Being crippled or handicapped is not their fault and is protected by the government as far as hiring practices go. I do not disciminate against handicapped people. Being fat IS the fault of the applicant. Put down the Big Mac and get your flabby ass to the gym. In 2008, there are very few reasons why a person should be fat. There's a gym on every corner and more health food stores than ever. Until they admit that it's their fault for being disgusting and start doing something about it, I refuse to hire them. And I think we should embarass fat people. The more embarassed they are, the more drive they will have to look presentable. |
| chucho | Posted – 6/4/2008 11:20:31 AM | show profile Not to be too picky, but if you're handicapped because you got drunk and wrecked your motorcycle, it is your fault. But in any case, I rest my case. The previous poster shows that employers will judge you harshly on your looks. |
| chucho | Posted – 6/4/2008 11:21:26 AM | show profile PS: Everyone views their biases and discrimination as justifiable and moral, by the way. |
| Rocky Mountain Writer | Posted – 6/4/2008 11:38:23 AM | show profile I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think what the sweet previous poster was saying is you can't changed handicapped, but you can change weight. That's about the extent that we agree, and that's really pushing it. Bree, I'm sorry that I changed the focus of your post. I do think looks affect things, but only temporarily. Once you show off your confidence and great ability (I'm not quite sure what you are going for if not for writing/editing), any adverse scarring will disappear. One question about grammar: Do we cut designers or circulation people slack for using bad grammar? While I agree that editors and writers should be flawless in their cover letters and resumes, I hold others to that standard as well. It's not like English isn't a core course. |
| foodlit | Posted – 6/4/2008 12:39:09 PM | show profile You know, I can overlook a misspelling or typo on the boards here, because you just might be typing fast. But, bad grammar is just bad grammar and you have to wonder if someone's grammar is as bad as the OP, both the headline and final sentence...how well do they present themselves in an interview? |
| chucho | Posted – 6/4/2008 1:00:35 PM | show profile >> I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think what the sweet previous poster was saying is you can't changed handicapped, but you can change weight. That's about the extent that we agree, and that's really pushing it. << I suppose. One thing that's really disturbing about this person's attitude is that s/he assumes because somebody is overweight that somebody can't be a reliable and talented employee. It's mot really a logical conclusion. One could argue that obese people are more likely to be social outcasts and therefore more into their jobs, or any other series of equally unsubstantiated assumptions. (And I've worked with people with weight problems who were far better employees than me, so this person's conclusions do not match my experience.) At the end of the day, it sounds like this person has done is used some lame, illogical conclusion (fat people = bad employees) to justify simply not wanting to hire people who are fat. This person should just be more honest about that. |
| chucho | Posted – 6/4/2008 1:26:39 PM | show profile PS: I said "I suppose" because if you get drunk and wreck yourself on a motorcycle, it is a kind of choice you made, an irresponsible choice that could reflect poorly on you as an employee. So I don't think that all handicapped people are that way out of complete lack of fault, and to assume so is a kind of discrimination in its own right. (Much like the "model citizen" stereotype attached to south Asian -- that all handicapped people are to have sympathy and be viewed as victims of fate. As a reporter once write covering an event for handicapped teens she felt compelled by her editors to write about them sympathetically when in fact they were horrible and extremely difficult and resentful.) |
| Metro Writer | Posted – 6/4/2008 1:28:51 PM | show profile Rocky Mountain, you forgot to mention bald people and hairy people as candidates to exclude. Bald people are often self-conscious and think about ways to hide their bald spot, which means that they aren't concentrating fully on the work for which they are paid so handsomely. Or they go for treatments that take them away from work. Overly hairy people might be offensive to others and they might be self-conscious about it and go for waxing or laser hair removal anytime during working hours (including lunch hour). No one who is in the military or naval reserve should be hired because there are two wars going on and that person might be called for duty and come back months later maimed and require treatment and physical therapy. Don't forget that one must not hire compulsive gamblers (no self-discipline) or abusive people (they might get arrested and not show up for work). In all seriousness, the comments about overweight people are uncalled for. Sometimes lack of self-discipline is the reason for obesity, but nature often works against people who have weight problems. Some medications (cortisone, for example) cause weight gain. Let's not be so hard on others. |
| Rocky Mountain Writer | Posted – 6/4/2008 1:42:44 PM | show profile Oh, Metro, I could have named many, many more. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny. I would say more about the lack of empathy for the "weighty" issues, but it would fall on deaf ears. Hiring is subjective, so go ahead and hire the pretty people only. Clones rarely have their own opinions. Chucho, that's what I get for empathizing with an idea in which I do not agree. |
| chucho | Posted – 6/4/2008 2:38:23 PM | show profile Rocky, I understood what you were saying. It was a valid point, IMO. Alls I's sayin' is that not all handicapped people are victims of fate and not all obese people are perpetrators of sloth. All this stereotyping. I'm going to avoid stereotyping by saying that I've met some very attractive people who also happened to be bright and outstanding workers. Heck, I was fired by one once. :) |
