job interview

A Bald Head… and a Job Interview

by C on 03/11/2010 · 88 comments

in Beauty, Business Etiquette, Career, Fashion, Networking, Wear to Work

Today’s e-mail is from J, who has a question about bold hair choices and job interviews…

I’m a public policy grad student, graduating in May and applying for jobs all over the place , but many in DC (employers range from government-level, to think-tanks, to smaller non-profits). I am 22. Right now I am pretty average-looking: short, white, size 2, brown hair slightly longer than shoulder-length in a well-maintained cut. I found out this week that my close family friends’ seven-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with leukemia. The girl and I are very close, and I think of her like my sister, so obviously I’m torn up about this. Her mom says she looks up to me, and I know I influence her behavior so I try to be a good role model. She’s going to be getting chemo, the whole nine yards, and I am anticipating that she’ll have a hard time if she loses her hair. I’m thinking about shaving my head to support her. Now I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never had short hair, let alone shaved it before, and I do have some issues about the whole thing — but none of them outweigh my desire to to do something concrete to help the girl. However, my question is, do you think a shaved head would affect my chances at getting a job? Would it be likely to freak an employer out? Any general thoughts?

Wow. We have a lot of thoughts on this, and we’re sure our readers will have more. We’ll try to put our thoughts in a cogent order…

First: Our hearts go out to your sick friend, to her family, and to you. Words can’t properly express how strongly we hope she gets better.
Second: We get what you want to do with the shaved head — words can’t express it, and to shave your head along with her and show solidarity with her — this is a Good Thing that you want to do. A few further thoughts:

It sounds like your friend has not yet lost her hair — we are unsure of how quickly a chemo patient loses their hair, or how definite hair loss is. (Background: a good friend of ours endured a lot of chemo when we were around 19, and she didn’t lose hardly any of her hair.) And so you may be jumping the gun a bit to get your head shaved immediately.
Do you see the girl often enough? It sounds as if you do — but if you only see her once every 3 months, you may want to reconsider, even though your gesture is incredibly magnanimous.
Would you keep it shaved throughout her treatment? Or would you let it grow out after shaving it?

Third: Ah, yes, the job thing. There’s no way around it, your job interviewers will DEFINITELY notice a shaved head. But:

Anyone with a heart will sympathize with your reasons for doing it. So long as your job is behind the scenes, hopefully the person will look beyond your hair.
If your job is NOT behind the scenes, or if Important People visit the office where you’ll be working on a regular basis, you may want to prepare yourself — this may not be a job that you will get, unless the person in charge thinks they are running a young, hip shop (whether it be a think tank or a non-profit). Some people simply will not want an underling who makes more of an impact than they do.
It will be your resume and transcript that wins you the interview — so your bald head won’t be an issue until then.
On the interview: You should think about how to explain your bald head in the interview. We think a bald head does need to be explained, both because a) the interviewer might worry that you are sick yourself, and you should dissuade those fears, and b) this act of shaving your head says a lot about who you are — it speaks to your loyalty, your strength, your sense of self — and these are all good things that interviewers should know. (A quick tip — you might want to simplify the story and just say “my 7-year-old sister” and leave it at that, unless the interviewer delves further.)*

Fourth: You are young. This is the time to shave your head, or dye your hair blue, or otherwise take fashion and beauty risks. Hair is a great place to take these risks, because it grows out and is back to normal in short order. Give yourself at least a few years until you force yourself to play it safe.

Fifth: We have less coherent thoughts on this, but as a stream: We have a number of guy friends who shaved their heads rather than deal with dwindling hair (or because they thought it looked cool). We have had friends who actually did suffer hair loss because of chemo and had no choice but to rock the bald look. We also know some very fashionable women who shaved their heads just because they thought it complimented their bone structure (and we’re sure we’ve seen at least, like, 3 models on America’s Next Top Model get it done.) A bald head really should not be a big deal.

We’ve spent limited time on the DC scene, though, so we asked a friend of ours who worked at numerous places (and was fairly powerful) before she left for greener pastures. Her thoughts:

My first instinct is that they may look at her and form (ignorant) opinions right away. My second thought is that it’s a good conversation starter for her and shows a side of her that demonstrates commitment, which is an attractive quality for a job applicant. However, for # 2 to work, she has to come up with a great way to open up the reason for her hair pretty quick into each interview. … Also, I’d say that if an interviewer judges her by her hair, she probably wouldn’t want to spend the majority of her waking hours with those people anyway.

All right, readers — what are your thoughts?

* UPDATE: Geez, commenters are going nuts over our suggestion that she simplify her explanation as much as possible. We stand by our advice to come up with a quick, easy way to explain your baldness, and be open to talking about the issue more if the interviewer wants to. This shouldn’t be the focus of the interview, though. We totally disagree that saying her friend is her “sister” is a Lie in the capital L sense of the word — which should never be done in a job interview, obviously, and perhaps “cousin” would have been better suggestion. But: either way it could be explained further, very easily and quickly, if the interviewer wanted to talk about it.

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How to Put Your Best Self Forward During a Skype Interview or Conference Call

by C on 02/25/2010 · 30 comments

in Business Etiquette, Commuting, Fashion, Interviewing, Networking

Our first thought when we got this request was, “garsh, these times we live in!” followed by, “of course, we will all be doing these very soon”…

Help! I am a 1L interviewing for summer associate position and the firm has decided to do a skype interview. I am terrified I will look washed out/ too made up/ etc on camera. Any tips for hair/makeup? Also, my career service office recommended wearing a nice blouse, but I feel a suit would be more appropriate.

Wow. Ok. We’ve only used Skype a few times (on our Mac laptop, primarily) to talk to a bestie who lives in London. From our limited experiences with Skype, we would have to say: it does not seem to be the most flattering. You don’t know where to look, because you want to see the screen and see what they’re doing, but you should be looking at the camera, and nothing is eye level, and it’s all very weird. (Pictured: nick skype, originally uploaded to Flickr by nedrichards.)

Some tips:

1) Download the program NOW, if you haven’t before. Start playing around with it. You may even want to see if there’s a way to record yourself talking on Skype (or talking on the other end of Skype) so you can practice — really practice — where to look and how to do it. Make sure your sound is good, make sure your Internet connection is good. Our guess is that your computer should be nearly eye level in order to do this.

2) Make sure everything about the call is professional. What’s your username? If possible get something resembling your e-mail address (even if it has a random number after it) — there are no points for creativity. Next, look around the room where you’ll be interviewing. If there’s a blank wall behind you, fine. If it’s your giant poster of Robert Patterson, you might want to find another locale. Given our choice, we’d go with a bookcase behind us, but really, just make sure there’s nothing that could be misunderstood as reflecting poorly on your personality or character. We’d also make sure that if you have any roommates (or a significant other, or kids, or even pets) that you barricade yourself inside a room, perhaps with a sign on the door about how you’re in the midst of a telephone interview and appreciate silence. (Turn off the ringer on your landline, if you have one, and the ringer on your cellphone, if you use one.)

2) We’d wear a full suit. It will get you in the “interviewing” mindset, and will help you feel more professional during the interview. In this About.com article on video interviewing, the Tech Expert for Skype recommends avoiding patterns unless you’re sure how they’ll look (dots look worse than stripes) and staying away from bright colors (sky blue looks great, but red/hot pink don’t look so hot). You could just do the top half of the suit (we’re sure we remember some comedic anchor joking about only wearing boxers during the newscast) but this could work against you — you might have to walk across the room to get something. Play it safe; it’s an interview.

3) For makeup, we would advise paying attention to undereye circles, flyaways, acne, and so forth. We’re a bit surprised to see the advice from the Skype expert, suggesting women wear “high-definition foundation (creating soft-focus effect in any kind of lighting), blu ray high-definition matifier (refines lines, minimizes pores for a polished look) and blu ray high-definition lip gloss (for a high shine, plumping effect)” — perhaps this is the world to come? As luck would have it, Sephora has a lot of those things on sale right now from the CARGO line of products — for example, this bronzer is $15 from $30 (CARGO blu_ray™ Bronzer Medium Matte). Not on sale, but also fits the bill: this HD foundation from MakeUp Forever (the primer, MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Microperfecting Primer 0 Neutral, is $32, and the foundation, MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Invisible Cover Foundation 115 Ivory, is $40). The concealer from the same line is $28 (MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Invisible Cover Concealer 315 Ivory).

4) Finally, focus on your posture. Because you’re in your own house you may feel more at home — don’t; this is still an interview. You might also want to be wary of awkward pauses in the interview, when you might be tempted to fidget, look bored, or allow yourself to be distracted (as you might during a pause in a telephone conversation). You’re still on camera; act as if you’re sitting in that person’s office.

Readers, please weigh in (particularly if you’ve interviewed someone via Skype!)…

(L-4)

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Makeup Review: L’Oreal Infallible Lip

by C on 03/13/2009 · 5 comments

in Beauty, Fashion, Makeup That Stays Put

Sometimes, when it matters most, you don’t have time to reapply your makeup. Being shuttled from person to person in a job interview? Sitting in front of a jury for four hours straight? You still want to look your best, but a lipstick, lip gloss, or tint really does not go the distance. Because of this, we’ve always been fans of long-lasting lipsticks. In the past, they’ve been things to endure. Some felt crunchy and drying after five minutes of wear. Others would wear unevenly, leaving you with lipstick only on the outer portions of your lips. But technology advances, and some of the new ones are exceptional — comfortable, great colors, and long lasting — and this occasional series will examine which ones those are. First up: L’Oreal’s selection of infallible lip colors, which the company was good enough to send to us to try out.

They sent us three kinds: the glosses, the lipsticks, and the LipColour. We were already fans of the LipColour — it’s a liquid that you use a sponge applicator to put on. It goes on precisely and smoothly, and, amazingly, doesn’t dry your lips too much — it’s more than normal lipsticks, but only slightly. The accompanying clear lip balm is also a keeper — moisturizing without being tacky or too glossy. The balm tends to wear off, though, and needs to be reapplied — whereas the LipColour is generally going to stay put until you decide to take it off. (Yes, even through a salad with an oily dressing.) The only problem here is color — finding the exact right shade can be a challenge. Nutmeg was too nude; Teaberry too pink. We wound up trying about eight different colors (even buying some with our own money!) and ended up liking Amethyst the best (L’Oreal Infallible LipColour, Amethyst 520), but it’s very hard to recommend a specific color. It’s $11.99 at Drugstore.com.

By far, the best find was the most surprising — a lip gloss. We’ve long thought that really glossy glosses (juicy ones, for lack of a better word) are unprofessional; you just don’t want to be parading around the office with really, um, wet lips. But this one is great because some magical change happens after you put it on. You apply it, and it feels sticky and looks glossy… and then, about two minutes later, it has become more permanent, more matte (it doesn’t look terribly wet after the first few minutes) and feels like it’s moisturizing and protecting your lips. It’s still slightly sticky — on a windy day your hair will get caught in it. The best thing about it is the staying power — we’ve never found a gloss that would stay put for more than an HOUR, let alone the three that we’re guestimating this one will stick through. We were given three colors to try, and wound up LOVING “Barely Nude” — especially as a compliment to a long-lasting lipstick, the duration and comfort are ridiculous. We would suggest staying with nude shades because, at least on us, the colors didn’t wear evenly — at one point we went to the bathroom and realized all of the red seemed to have migrated to the corners of our lips. Embarrassing! But the “Barely Nude” shade is one we’ll keep in our makeup bag for a long, long time. L’Oreal Infallible Never Fail Lipgloss, Barely Nude 815, available at Drugstore.com for $9.99.

Finally, we tested the lipstick version of the liquid lip colour. Personally, we didn’t like it — we found that compared to the liquid stuff, it didn’t wear as evenly, didn’t go on as smoothly, and didn’t last as long — but the colors we tried were REALLY, really, not our colors.