A lot of times we talk about face value and how everything gets judged around it. And, here I’m literally talking about “face” value, and how much it is looked upon to gauge your talent in professional world.
Most of us know about professions where looks play paramount role, in some profession its looks + smartness and for rest looks are supposed to play no role. But, Are there any such profession? I think it rarely does exist. Rarely not because people exploit their looks for success but actually how critically a profession judges a professional’s talent by his/her looks.
It was just a few months after my post graduation, my friend had mustache grown on his face. His answer to my enquiry of change in fashion was simple, he was handling his business and he didn’t wanted to look newbie and novice in business, who lacked sense of business; and off course he had to give slightly mean look. A few months later it my turn, a client looked at my colleague & me and got worried with our silly young excited face. He wanted to know how qualified we were to handle his research project.
Young is not the look that most of the young professionals want and truth is that young look in most of profession is not looked upon. How many of us can ever believe most of the senior level person look at young professional and say “yeah, I think s/he handle it”. If you want to move slightly upward then young is out and mature is in. How many people ever trust young doctors irrespective of their talent? I have seen people making themselves look older than they actually are to gain trust of their patients/clients.
It’s so ironic that anyone and everyone who wants to look younger in their personal lives and does whatever possible to look young actually wants to look aged in their professional lives. Sometimes there is pressure to differentiate. I have seen young people with managerial roles trying hard to create differentiation between themselves and their team members and that begins with facial hair.
French bread is most popular it seems people take French beard route to look more matured compared to rest of team members. I don’t know how much of this effort is directed towards their bosses that help in identifying a young manager from his team or making boss believe that they have really become matured in life with straw of facial hair. I’m not sure if this one is global phenomena because if French people would come to know this then would have heart attack that people use French beard to fake their maturity and the killing part would be you look notches up older with it.
Most of us know about professions where looks play paramount role, in some profession its looks + smartness and for rest looks are supposed to play no role. But, Are there any such profession? I think it rarely does exist. Rarely not because people exploit their looks for success but actually how critically a profession judges a professional’s talent by his/her looks.
It was just a few months after my post graduation, my friend had mustache grown on his face. His answer to my enquiry of change in fashion was simple, he was handling his business and he didn’t wanted to look newbie and novice in business, who lacked sense of business; and off course he had to give slightly mean look. A few months later it my turn, a client looked at my colleague & me and got worried with our silly young excited face. He wanted to know how qualified we were to handle his research project.
Young is not the look that most of the young professionals want and truth is that young look in most of profession is not looked upon. How many of us can ever believe most of the senior level person look at young professional and say “yeah, I think s/he handle it”. If you want to move slightly upward then young is out and mature is in. How many people ever trust young doctors irrespective of their talent? I have seen people making themselves look older than they actually are to gain trust of their patients/clients.
It’s so ironic that anyone and everyone who wants to look younger in their personal lives and does whatever possible to look young actually wants to look aged in their professional lives. Sometimes there is pressure to differentiate. I have seen young people with managerial roles trying hard to create differentiation between themselves and their team members and that begins with facial hair.
French bread is most popular it seems people take French beard route to look more matured compared to rest of team members. I don’t know how much of this effort is directed towards their bosses that help in identifying a young manager from his team or making boss believe that they have really become matured in life with straw of facial hair. I’m not sure if this one is global phenomena because if French people would come to know this then would have heart attack that people use French beard to fake their maturity and the killing part would be you look notches up older with it.
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