Do looks really matter that much?

As a career consideration, how important is it to be attractive? I'd like to think not too important, but the reality is that a person's physical attractiveness is really critical -- for some types of jobs. Career-advice blogger Penelope Trunk takes this issue to a new level in a recent post, going as far as recommending plastic surgery for those who want to climb the career ladder.

Trunk believes that salespeople and managers, in particular, will be more successful if they're tall and good-looking. Of course, exceptions abound. Personality needs to be factored in, as does determination, skill levels, intelligence, empathy, intuition and so on. On the whole, however, if you're a hiring manager and need to choose between two candidates, you're probably going to select the attractive person over the less-attractive person, everything else being equal.

It would be nice to say that employers in public transportation are unswayed by the looks of candidates when it comes time to make a job offer. But we all know that would be generally untrue. This industry is no different than others in that respect.

Bringing top-notch people into public transportation is becoming increasingly important, however, and argues for hiring the most promising candidates rather than the most attractive. Yes, I know, you would never hire someone based on looks alone (although we've all had our lapses), but we need to resist the temptation to bring aboard people whose strongest attribute is a good plastic surgeon.

Until next time.

Steve

Comments

[Michele]

Maybe looks don't count when you hire someone but dress should when you send that person out in public as an example of employees that you have hired. Here is the public face of your organization.
Does he wear worn out pink shorts with rags hanging out of both back pockets, a dirty t-shirt and a visor that looks like it has been repeatedly dipped in grease? And we musn't forget the sloppy whitish gray knee high socks and work boots to finish off the outfit. Who is going to take you or your employees seriously when you don't even have enough control over them to enforce a dress code?

As to plastic surgery? Ah well...some of us are at an age where that might do some good but where to start, where to start?