Want That Job?
Who Knew? There are so many job-hunting tips nobody tells you.
Millions of us in midlife are either looking for jobs or trying to find more work and boost our careers as we stitch together the work we find. There is a lot of excellent advice and tips out there on well-known job hunting (and job-keeping) skills. But there is also a lot nobody ever tells you.
As a former career adviser to college students and someone who has remade herself professionally over and over, I discovered there are so many less obvious (but incredibly important) tips for getting jobs or moving ahead in your career –and even more ways to blow an opportunity—that nobody tells you. For those of us who are of a certain age, being in the workforce, staying in it or re-entering it can be challenging. Why not take all the advice we can get, right?
Here's some midlife career advice I thought I'd share. A study just reported in The New York Times yesterday, is a perfect example.
Does wearing makeup make you look more competent?
The New York Times reported yesterday that apparently beauty tips are also career tips. Turns out how to use makeup may be a key skill in your job-hunting toolkit (or makeup bag).
Wearing makeup makes you seem "capable, reliable and amiable."
According to a study, women wearing makeup were judged to be more competent than women without makeup. Period. Not over-the-top makeup but makeup ranging from a "natural" look to a look deemed more "glam." Whatever cosmetics these women wore, it somehow communicated a look of competence that the bare-faced women did not.
Key makeup tips:
Want to look powerful and in charge? Wear "a deeper lip color that could look shiny," the scientist urges.
Want to look like a "collaborative" team player? Go for "lip tones that are light to moderate."
According to The Times:
"The participants judged women made up in varying intensities of luminance contrast (fancy words for how much eyes and lips stand out compared with skin) as more competent than barefaced women, whether they had a quick glance or a longer inspection."
"There is also some evidence that women feel more confident when wearing makeup, a kind of placebo effect, said Nancy Etcoff, the study's lead author and an assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard University (yes, scholars there study eyeshadow as well as stem cells). But no research, till now, has given makeup credit for people inferring that a woman was capable, reliable and amiable."
Decide for yourself. Maybe the women in the study simply felt more confident wearing makeup and so gave off an air of competence that the barefaced women lacked. Maybe it's all those Covergirl ads. Whatever it is, I say put whatever tools YOU need in your career toolkit to give yourself the best chance of getting that job. If one of those tools is lipstick, well, we're worth it.