Good Looking Faces on LinkedIn

 

Does either a pretty face on a woman, or a handsome visage on a man, guarantee a more lucrative professional career? I ask this because of the profile pictures on LinkedIn, many of which seem like they were taken by a hired photographer bent on making their otherwise humdrum clients look more like glamorous supermodels than people competent in their chosen job skill.

True, Edward has a decent resume in Information Technology, and the more brilliant Peter could hack into the NSA if he lacked ethics, BUT Edward’s shiny photo shows a man a few plucked eyebrow hairs away from appearing on the cover of GQ, while Peter, on his LinkedIn page, features an image taken on his smart phone into a foggy mirror just prior to shaving after a hot shower and depicts a man closer, in appearance, to Woody Allen than to Dylan McDermott. Guess who would get the first interview from an IT company because his face brims with “dynamic confidence” and the hint of someone comfortable in his own skin and therefore more apt to be a team player regardless of Edward’s real-life narcissism? Hint: Edward. Another hint: not Peter.

Then there are the LinkedIn profiles of women who, to be honest, could very well be models if their careers in marketing or acupuncture should ever fail to pay the bill just received from their high-end photographer. I clicked on a few of these profiles – first because I did indeed find them attractive to the point of imagining them and me walking down the marriage aisle, and, second, because I wanted to test my hypothesis that they had more “professional contacts” than did less striking ladies in the same field. The reader may guess the answer. The gorgeous and cosmetically made-up Janet, a real estate agent in a modest-sized town in Iowa, has five times more “contacts” than the jowly Sarah plying her desperate trade in the heavily populated Austin, Texas.

I have a “friend” who could very well be the most beautiful fifty-ish-year-old woman on the planet. (You can see for yourself on the blog that I wrote called The All-American Girl.) One day she was telling me about the professional prospects of her daughter, and I quote: “First she’s VERY pretty….and she’s a good at her job….” To underline the obvious, she led with how her daughter’s inherent beauty mattered more than any other factor in her ability to make money.

My own LinkedIn photo was taken by my brother, on my iPhone, in front of a clown statue.

I have a B.S. in Biology at Umass Boston, and it was in my Evolution class that I wrote a paper that scientifically supports my argument. I converted it to a humor-laden blog that the reader, if she or he is willing to continue hanging on my every word, can peruse on the following link: Sexual Selection.

Of course, there have been so many studies that demonstrate that male height and female beauty are advantageous to climbing the economic ladder that only a contrarian with chronic migraines would dismiss as just an opinion. So for all you average-looking job-seekers, remember that a good photographer and better lighting — and Photoshop –could very well be more beneficial to your career than actual competence.

(Check out my writer website: http://www.authorjamesfjohnson.com)

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