It is no great secret that better looking people are more successful in life. This isn’t just anecdotal: several studies have researched the question and found that that attractive people are more likely to find professional success and are often offered more jobs, higher salaries, and promotions.

So, it was with some amusement that I read this; hat tip to William Teach!

“Pretty Privilege Is A Real Thing”: This Woman Was Seemingly Denied A Job After Showing Up To Her Interview Makeup-Free, And Women Are Sharing Similar Stories

Eclipse Monday, April 8, 2024 | 12:15 PM EDT

The job market today might be bleak, but job seekers everywhere still adhere to “professionalism standards” when interviewing for new roles.

A career community survey of over 500 hiring professionals determined that a woman’s level of professionalism is often judged based on her physical appearance, including weight, body shape, hairstyle, and clothing choices.

This issue was recently raised by Melissa Weaver, a NYC job-seeker, who posted about her experience of purportedly being denied a position because she didn’t wear makeup in her interview.

Miss Weaver asked the appropriate question: “Does not wearing makeup for women to job interviews or to jobs make it seem like they aren’t putting as much effort or care into their jobs?” But, in another way, she missed it, because the interviewer is only able to judge how much effort an applicant put into her job interview.

Every hiring decision is a gamble, and every interviewer is looking at more than just what the applicant says, because applicants will embellish, and, quite frankly, some applicants will flat out lie. And yes, if an applicant does not appear to put that much effort into the job interview, and that effort does include appearance, why would an interviewer believe that the applicant would put that much effort into the job?

I will be very direct here: Miss Weaver is no beauty queen. She’s also not really ugly, but she is, at least to judge from the photos she showed, kind of ordinary looking.

“So I interviewed for a job earlier this week,” Melissa explained in a recent TikTok video. “The interview went so well, every question she had, I had a great answer for. I used to work in recruitment, I know how to interview. My background and experience aligned perfectly with what the role entails.”

“So, I thought it went great, but then I get an email from the recruiter saying that I’m not going to be moving on to the next round. I was really bummed because I wanted the job. I was also very confused, so I did something I never do, and I emailed her back and asked for feedback.”

“She said that while my background was exactly what they were looking for, my experience lined up with what they needed for the position, and my own personal goals and values aligned with the company’s; she was concerned that for my interview, I hadn’t put in enough effort in my appearance, given the level of role I was interviewing for.”

“I was interviewing for a vice president position. I had done a blowout for my hair, had on a nice top, a blazer, earrings, but I only had on ChapStick; I didn’t have on any makeup because I don’t really wear a lot of makeup,” Melissa explained.

There’s an old saying that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and Miss Weaver was interviewing for a vice president’s position. That’s a position of some responsibility, including supervisory responsibility, and in skipping makeup, she wasn’t putting maximum effort into the interview. To the interviewer, Miss Weaver didn’t put enough effort into showing that she actually cared about the job.

In 1975, John T Malloy published a guidebook Dress for Success, which he updated in 1988. He later published a Women’s Dress for Success book.

Mr Malloy’s message was clear: in a competitive arena, a competitor needs every advantage he can get, and his guidelines might have seemed simple, but he outlined his reasons for every one, and they made sense. For example, for men, he advised that, for a professional look, he should never wear a short-sleeved dress shirt. Do you want to look like a C-Suite executive, or the assistant manager of a grocery store. We don’t know who Miss Weaver’s competition for that vice president’s job were, but we do know one thing: someone out-competed her for the position!

Is it fair that Miss Weaver was selected against because she “hadn’t put in enough effort (into her) appearance”? The left would say that no, it isn’t fair, but life isn’t fair. Did you know that taller men outearn shorter men? It’s true, and not just in Western cultures; it happens in China as well. Miss Weaver could have chosen to wear makeup to her interview, and while any man can work on his posture, no one can change his height.

So now we come to the CROWN Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. Four cities in conservative Kentucky passed it, an ordinance which bans “ban race-based hair discrimination of certain hair styles — such as braids, locs, twists or Bantu Knots.” I’m not sure how this could be enforced, but it’s yet another attempt by the government to direct private decision-taking.

Major corporations try to create a corporate culture, a culture that the top executives believe will promote unity and productivity. Miss Weaver? Based on her appearance at her job interview, the interviewer at the very least did not see her as a candidate who would fit in well with what the company sought. The Lexington ordinance might, at least in theory, prevent businesses from discriminating against an applicant with dreadlocks for an entry level position, but anyone who is looking to move up the ladder is going to have to conform to a general corporate culture.

“If a man doesn’t have to wear makeup to get a job, a woman shouldn’t either.”

It’s true that men don’t have to wear makeup to get ahead corporately, and if a man does wear makeup, he will most probably not get hired or promoted. And men aren’t expected to wear high heels.

But men are expected to wear suits and ties, and, as we’ve previously noted, long-sleeved dress shirts, where women can choose between skirts, dresses or pants, skip the tie, and wear short-sleeved, or even sleeveless bouses under their blazers. Women have a far wider range of ‘acceptable’ hair styles when it comes to business and promotability. So many of the #woke seem to think that men and women are not just legally equal but socially indistinguishable, and that is not now, and never has been, the case. Men and women are different, they are different in ways that make a difference, and all sensible people understand that.