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We have noticed the increased importance appearance and looks seem to have in Western society today. These new tendencies are all pointing at the same thing; image is everything. The widespread obsession with a beautiful surface now seems to be entering the professional arena as well. Hence, our aim with this report is to try to investigate what role physical appearance actually plays when it comes to our careers. We wish to emphasise that we do not take it for granted that this is necessarily problem, we just want to investigate if it is. Our main question in this report is as follows: Is the appearance of a job applicant important when going through the recruitment process and if so, which criteria matter most? We have chosen to focus on the recruitment process in general terms, and more specifically on the moment when the employer meets and sees the applicant for the first time - the interview. We have chosen to divide the theoretical framework into three sections; one part dealing with beauty, a second part discussing clothing as communication, and a third part with focus on the construction of identities; performativity. All of these three fields are related to what we call appearance and will together compose a solid theoretical ground that hopefully will help us understand whether there are certain criteria of appearance that are more important than others when applying for a job. Finally, we present some of the findings from previous studies, enabling a profound comprehension for the topic. In addition, we have carried out comprehensive interviews with recruiters as well sending out questionnaires. Our conclusion is that appearance indeed is important when it comes to job-related matters, but exactly how important is very hard to say. We mean that the importance of appearance varies depending on occupation, the recruiter’s personal preferences and the applicant’s formal qualifications. The opinions of what is seen as appropriate and inappropriate differ...
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