You Have to Be This Beautiful To Get This Job
When I was unemployed and searching for a job, I always felt like there wasn’t a job site that met my specific talents. Luckily, in spite of this, I was able to find a job, but should anything ever happen and I am out looking again, I was just made aware of a site that seems almost created exclusively for me. On April 29, 2010, http://beautifuljobseekers.com was launched to help those men and women who have been hampered by their good looks and want to find a job where the competition is a little less fierce.
All sarcasm aside, this site truly did launch and the press release that was sent out to announce this new job search resource makes some sense, as disgusting as that may sound. As the press release notes, if you walk into any successful night club, you’ll notice that the bartenders are hot. At any restaurant, the waitresses can get you to order extra food just by batting their eyelashes. And a good salesperson knows that their ability to sell can be augmented by a beautiful face, a winning smile and maybe a specific way they dress. And look at your news anchors. Beautiful people are a hot commodity, so it would make sense that a website would be devoted to this sect of the population that is out of work and “too beautiful” to be unemployed.
When I worked at a newspaper, our salesperson was very attractive and led us to record sales. Our receptionist was beautiful and she was there to greet people – the first face they would see when they came to our office. And one of our reporters was a knockout and she was strategically used on the police beat – why, because if police didn’t respond to the guy talk that sometimes wins them over with male reporters, they love flirting with a beautiful woman.
According to the press release, BeautifulJobSeekers.com is an employment website which helps beautiful, skilled and talented job seekers to stand out from the competition in the job market. At the same time it helps employers seeking beautiful, skilled and talented people, to speed up their recruitment process. Here is what Ralph van Troost, founder of BeautifulJobSeekers.com, said about the site: “I figured if no-one else is going to close this ugly gap between beautiful job seekers and employers looking to hire them, I’m going to do it myself.”
But here is the problem with the site. After working hard on a resume, preparing for the job interview and struggling with rejection from one company after another, there really is no need for a site to deflate the ego of the unemployed job seeker any further. In order to get full access to the site, you need to be considered a beautiful person. How does this happen? You upload your picture and get ranked, sort of like Hot or Not Hot or Face the Jury. If you don’t rank, you don’t get the access you might need for the job you want. Now, not only are you not getting the job, you are also being told by total strangers that you might be ugly or at least not pretty enough to work where you want to work. Imagine how detrimental this could be at a time when morale is already low.
But here is the other problem. We do take notice of beautiful people – it’s a tragic fault of the society we live in, but if you pay close attention, there are those that aren’t considered beautiful who are the patron’s favorite bartender or waitress, because they win them over with conversation. There are sales people who sign the clients on their charm. There are reporters who use talent to get the story. There are other kinds of beautiful out there, which can’t be measured by a photograph and superficial minds.
If anything, BeautifulJobSeekers.com is for those who already have jobs and are casually looking for new ones, but for those hardworking unemployed individuals who need a job yesterday, BeautifulJobSeekers.com is not only an ugly site, it’s a waste of time…and no matter what economy we are in, time is money.
Vault's Careers Blog 
OMG, was this site created as a joke? The image that appears in the browser tab is just the company’s initials, “BJ”. Intentional?
Missa
April 30, 2010 at 8:56 am
I don’t think it’s a joke. A press release went out and everything. But regardless, it does raise an issue. Should employers weed out their applicant pool based on looks? Do certain jobs allow employers to do so?
jonminners
April 30, 2010 at 9:05 am
Wow, it amazes me that companies have become so lazy that they can’t even weed out ugly people themselves, they need a website to do it!
But in all seriousness, this unfortunately happens all the time. Over the many jobs I have worked, I have been told to “be prettier” because I didn’t wear makeup, despite the fact that all of my clients loved me. I have sat in on interviews in which the interviewer stared at the interviewee’s boobs all the time, and I have watched a boss fire an older woman and then speed through several buxom blonde model-types before settling on me begrudgingly because all of the buxom blondes were completely unqualified and I was.
Yes, in some jobs, beauty does help, but brains factor in as way more important. Looks alone won’t save you if you don’t have a brain or good conversational skills.
Heather
April 30, 2010 at 9:33 am
Very good point. I had a boss who seemed to hire only beautiful women and when he was called on it, jokingly, he went out of his way to hire non-beautiful women. Instead, he should have just paid attention to their resume and hired based on talent and intelligence. A talented person will take the company to new levels looks alone can’t accomplish.
jonminners
April 30, 2010 at 9:43 am
Hi Jon, thanks for the interesting post about the site! Will soon post a link to it on the BJS press page.
You’re right about BJS not being a joke. I personally like to create serious sites, that can spark a serious discussion. And of all sites I created during the last several years, I think BJS is my best site so far. As it could indeed spark a serious discussion on quite a large scale. I think such discussions are very interesting to follow, which is why I like to create sites such as BJS.
I hope the above explains my motives a little bit.
To further fuel the discussion:
If an employer hires people based on level of education, doesn’t such an employer in fact discriminate people based on their intelligence? And what’s the actual difference between discriminating on intelligence and discriminating on looks? Is it social acceptance or something else?
Ralph van Troost
April 30, 2010 at 4:06 pm
It’s not always about intelligence, it is also about experience and capability. When a resume is looked at more than education level is taken into account. When I received my first position in my field, it was without a college degree, even though one was required. However, through a display of my work ethic and my abilities I was able to earn that job and others like it and worked in my field with different employers for four years before ever attaining my degree. All because I showed the wherewithal and personality to prove that I was capable of the job. Believe me when I say, there is a large percentage of my job that has little to do with smarts, and way more to do with memory, personality and charm.
The funny thing is I don’t believe myself to be stupid. And I don’t believe myself to be ugly. I, myself, have had to direct a male employers eyes away from certain areas of my body before. But do I think either of those things are enough to earn my job. No way.
Heather
May 1, 2010 at 7:07 am
I tend to believe that a level of intelligence, coupled with experience and the appropriate job skills would be more important to an employer than the level of beauty a candidate possesses. The funny thing about the site is, it still doesn’t really give all beautiful job seekers an opportunity. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some people who are beautiful may not even make the cut if a group of people who just wants to be mean that day, poorly ranks them…or those who want to compete for a specific job do the same. There are a lot of variables that get in the way of your site truly targeting the type of people you want to target. But the fact that someone who does make the cut could get the job over a more-skilled “less beautiful” person seems wrong.
jonminners
May 3, 2010 at 10:24 am
I was just recently introduced to the BeautifulJobSeekers.com site through a newsletter Monster.com sends out that is primarily targeted to females. I was intrigued by the site so I decided to submit my profile. Career-wise, I’ve always had jobs in fields spanning from retail & outside sales to promotional modeling, marketing and as a brand ambassador for specific companies or products. In many of these positions, whether it was clearly stated by the employer or not, there was no question that the employer was seeking an attractive female/male to represent the company.
In my chosen career path as an actress, I am constantly seeing companies that are looking for a specific “type” of individual. To be clear, these are NOT production companies making these decisions…these are MAJOR brands that we see and are a part of our lives everyday, asking casting studios to seek out these specific “types” FOR THEM. BUT no one sees that side of the business…do they?
In every commercial we see…in every magazine, there are beautiful people that were CHOSEN to be featured strictly because they represent the client’s ideal of an image that best parallels with that company’s brand and/or image.
I can understand women of generations previous to mine being offended by this site and idea. I understand it is because their generation has fought so hard to be considered as equals to men in the job market…and I can say that I could never thank them enough. It is only through their efforts that women have become so empowered. This empowerment has led the women of my generation to adapt to today’s job market & economy and learn to use “our assets” to OUR advantage.
I am a 20-something woman and completely secure with myself. I am well-aware that my looks and body type has gotten me opportunities others could not have gotten. Do I feel good about this? The answer is no. Do I feel like unattractive people have a lesser place in the job market? Hell no! But, let’s be fair, in this economy and with unemployment as LOW as it is…I’m willing to use every resource I have available to me to get a job. It’s an uber-competitive world out there, and hate me or not for it, I’m going into that job interview with both guns loaded, so to speak.
Don’t for a second think that I am “sleeping” my way to the top or using any part of my body as a gift of trade. I never have–NEVER will. But just the same, I am not naive to the fact that my looks have gotten me more sales in my sales jobs and thus made me more money in the long run. Was the employer smart for hiring a pretty, charming girl to cold call on businesses??…probably so. Because I can assure you, if I was making money, than he sure as hell was too.
So, as a woman of my generation, I can say these things keeping 100% integrity intact: I am smart – street & book smart, I am a college graduate, I know what assets I have (professionally & physically) and I know how to use them to MY advantage without doing anything that would be compromising my morals. More simply, I think of it as realizing someone’s weakness/desire for an attractive person and molding that weakness/desire to fit MY long term goal & needs.
Ultimately, whether we’d like to realize it or not, we’ve all been judged at one time or another based on our appearance. For me, I realize it, hate the truth of it…and then find a way to put the power back into MY OWN HANDS. So I say, for the women who find this site and are at the the stage of “hate it”…well, now’s the absolute perfect time to put “the power back into YOUR OWN HANDS.”
Use it to YOUR advantage…
Yours Truly,
JobSeeker who’s working the system
Kristi Hatsell
May 21, 2010 at 4:31 am