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Opinion

Is image almost everything?

By Masako Yamada


外見ってそんなに大事なの?

仕事で成功するためには見た目が重要だと、キャリアコンサルティング氏のアドバイス。
洋服を新調するくらいは簡単なことだけど…。

If I were to mention a distinctive national trait that Americans have, it is the belief that people can make mistakes and recover from them. It is a place where "self-improvement" and "doing over" are considered to be under an individual's control. Hence, the number of pop-psychology books, image consultants, career advisors and motivational videos.

Recently, a famous career consultant named Harvey Coleman came to my workplace to give a one-day seminar on achieving success. Although I didn't attend the seminar, I heard about his advice. I both agreed with and was disgusted by it. He espouses the PIE model. The central thesis is that workplace success is determined by three factors: Performance, Image and Exposure. I can understand that those three factors influence success, but what's disturbing is that he considers Performance to be, by far, the least important factor.

In a similar vein, one of the senior women at my workplace has told women at the company that they should never wear jeans or sneakers to work because it doesn't convey the right image. I deeply resented this advice, since a lot of us do lab work, and jeans and sneakers are comfortable enough to enable us to do a good job. But I suppose I also judge people on their appearance. I don't know if it's my latent geek pride, but if I see a young female scientist who is very well dressed, I wonder if she takes her job seriously. After all, I've even seen men superior to me, including my manager and many respected researchers, wear jeans and sneakers.

Although I've never been particularly interested in clothes, makeup and hair, when I attended Boston University the fashion sense of the stylish undergraduates rubbed off on me. I lived in Boston and constantly walked around. I knew that the foot-traffic on the street was my audience and I dressed accordingly.

Ever since I started working in upstate New York, I've gained weight and my fashion sense has plummeted. Because there are no sidewalks, there is no foot-traffic. I neither have the opportunity to look at stylish people, nor do I have to respond to the piercing gaze of passersby. We go by car from one place to the next. My job responsibilities include assigning tasks to junior scientists, doing paperwork by myself at my desk, or running experiments in a dark and isolated lab. In this environment, wearing a free company polo shirt with a "Boston University" logo jacket is not inappropriate. It's the kind of garb that most of my male colleagues wear.

For the past few months, I've been trying to make a step up in my career from an adept lab monkey to a role that carries more technical and organizational responsibility. I've asked many people for career advice and I've been told I need to convey a more deliberate, professional image, i.e., new clothes. I've never really thought of what kind of practical (non-performance-related) steps I need to take in order to achieve my goals. It's not hard to go to the mall to buy new clothes. It's not even hard to know what those clothes should look like. But some part of me is resisting ...

(533 words)


Discussion: How important do you think appearance is in success?



Shukan ST: April 28, 2006

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