How important is your 'look' as a nurse

edmia, BSN, RN · May 17, 2014

Unfortunately, looks are very important because, as has been stated, hiring managers make their mind up within a couple of minutes of meeting a candidate. Is this right or fair? Absolutely not! Is it reality? Yes with some exceptions.

For my work, I visit different facilities and can observe the "look" of the staff. It is amazing how there is a "type" for facilities as a whole and then types within the larger type, for specific floors (i.e., managers). There's the hospital who obviously wants to be "diverse" and the one whose head of HR must have an unfulfilled Baywatch fantasy going on. The only places who seem to truly not discriminate based on looks, weight, ethnicity, or whatever seem to be the public hospitals (although, it could be argued that it would be hard to get a job there if you're too white -- so that's another form of discrimination but maybe it's what's happened to balance out the hidden discrimination going on at private hospitals).

An experiment I'd like to conduct: hiring person and interviewee separated by a curtain. Decisions made just on the merits of the interview. Control group would be regular interview. Compare race, age, number of tattoos, BMI, etc between the groups. What would happen?

Ruby Vee, BSN · May 17, 2014

Unfortunately, looks are very important because, as has been stated, hiring managers make their mind up within a couple of minutes of meeting a candidate. Is this right or fair? Absolutely not! Is it reality? Yes with some exceptions.

You're assuming that everyone's standard of "beauty" is the same and that hiring managers are going to hire based on their standard of "beauty." It could be that the manager of the CCU weighs a lot more than she should and people who come to an interview looking too thin, terribly fit or very toned make her uncomfortable. Maybe she'll hire only "fluffy" people to whom she can relate unless one of those toned gym rats has an extraordinary resume.

Perhaps the manger of the oncology unit wants to hire only people who look middle of the road -- not beautiful, not ugly but just relatable. Kate Upton need not apply. Another manager only wants to hire people who graduated from ADN programs because they'll stay longer before going to CRNA school. (They have to get the BSN first.)

Managers hire people they want to work with, and you can usually determine whether or not someone is going to be relatable or make you uncomfortable in a minute or two. That doesn't always have anything to do with weight.

edmia, BSN, RN · May 17, 2014

You're assuming that everyone's standard of "beauty" is the same and that hiring managers are going to hire based on their standard of "beauty." It could be that the manager of the CCU weighs a lot more than she should and people who come to an interview looking too thin, terribly fit or very toned make her uncomfortable. Maybe she'll hire only "fluffy" people to whom she can relate unless one of those toned gym rats has an extraordinary resume.
Perhaps the manger of the oncology unit wants to hire only people who look middle of the road -- not beautiful, not ugly but just relatable. Kate Upton need not apply. Another manager only wants to hire people who graduated from ADN programs because they'll stay longer before going to CRNA school. (They have to get the BSN first.)
Managers hire people they want to work with, and you can usually determine whether or not someone is going to be relatable or make you uncomfortable in a minute or two. That doesn't always have anything to do with weight.

I didn't say anything about weight. I said looks in general. What that means to a particular person is different for everyone. And you proved my point. I see a personality in the unit's look and that has everything with whatever bias the hiring person has. And it is a bias. If you're overweight and uncomfortable with thin people or the other way around, then you are not making a fair decision based on work ethics or qualifications.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · May 17, 2014

An experiment I'd like to conduct: hiring person and interviewee separated by a curtain. Decisions made just on the merits of the interview. Control group would be regular interview. Compare race, age, number of tattoos, BMI, etc between the groups. What would happen?

A similar experiment was conducted already....I don't recall the specifics (maybe someone here will know more?) but I do remember that hiring panels (or was it admissions staff for university?) were given applicants/resumes WITHOUT PHOTOS and asked to "grade" them. Rank them, define how likely they were to be offered the position, like that.

Same applications/resumes submitted WITH PHOTOS, showing candidates to be very attractive....and another group submitted WITH PHOTOS showing more homely people. Probably not a surprise, but the attractive group were all at the top of the hiring/admissions list, and the ugly ones....not so much.

Keep in mind, these were the SAME applicants---just showing different photos to the people in charge of hiring/admissions!

So we can say looks don't matter all we want, and we can insist that it's wrong to judge, and we'd be half right. Looks DO matter, even if it IS wrong to judge! Reality is there is a decided bias against homeliness and weight/height proportions that are out of the "desired" balance, what is perceived by the general public as attractive.

It's entirely possible that the applicant who is 75 pounds overweight is the better overall candidate.....but it's also possible that the applicant won't get past someone who has a weight bias. Completely unfair, but life isn't fair.....I'd love to think that being well-groomed, well-dressed, having a pleasant personality and poise is going to succeed over the less-qualified but more physically attractive applicant. But sometimes, well, I'd be wrong.

2k15NurseExtern4u, BSN, RN · May 17, 2014

I can only imagine that the main posters who have an issue in this post are overweight or are otherwise deemed unattractive.

BusyBee91 · May 17, 2014

Bold emphasis mine...
Be careful about what you are saying here. If nurses should be "reasonably expected to maintain a healthy body fat percentage" who is going to enforce that, and on what grounds?

1. Saying that obesity is not a behavior is true, but it seems a bit like an oversimplification. Certainly, there are exceptions, but I think generally speaking, the type of obesity we see as an epidemic in the states IS fueled by a set of behaviors. Not always, but certainly frequently. Can we agree on that?

2. I'm not saying I think that only healthy and fit nurses should be nurses - I don't necessarily feel that way. However, there is some precedent for that that I've seen in the EMS world - some ems jurisdictions require their providers to pass timed physicals. Not that being able to run a mile in under ten minutes means you're health or skinny, but you can't possibly believe that there isn't a correlation.

Also, I'm really not saying nurses should be held to standards of health or body fat, but since it IS socially acceptable (not saying it's ok) to tell smokers they should quit, that I don't understand why it isn't also ok to tell obese persons they should lose weight. I get that it's not that simple, but I think it's a similar idea. I'm certainly not in a position to be saying who would enforce (or how) an employment policy on body fat. I'm not saying that there should be a policy on it.

Is that more clear?

T-Bird78 · May 18, 2014

Fellow nurse is morbidly obese (our scale only goes up to 350 so she's not sure how much she weighs) and when she's asking pts about their smoking habits, she'll say something along the lines of "I know I need to lose weight, I just eat too much; you know you need to quit smoking, so we both have something we need to work on." And no, she's not healthy, she has a list of health problems that are all tied to obesity. To the OP, just be clean and well-groomed.

crossfitnurse · May 19, 2014

Everyone's got an imperfection of some sort. For some it's weight.

Nurses aren't expected to be perfect.

So let's end this crap?

Umberlee · May 19, 2014

I've been thinking about this more and more recently. My very first job as an LPN I was made to take out my nosering due to my supervisor's opinion that it was "unprofessional." As I'm feeling some sort of early midlife crisis approaching, I have the urge to throw a few piercings in and streak my hair pink or something. I've always felt like I became kind of a sellout in maintaining the middle-class corporate America kind of image. My big reservation, of course, is dealing with the prejudices and snap judgments of others, especially supervisors or managers, even if it's just something as simple as "how unprofessional. "

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · May 19, 2014

I've been thinking about this more and more recently. My very first job as an LPN I was made to take out my nosering due to my supervisor's opinion that it was "unprofessional." As I'm feeling some sort of early midlife crisis approaching, I have the urge to throw a few piercings in and streak my hair pink or something. I've always felt like I became kind of a sellout in maintaining the middle-class corporate America kind of image. My big reservation, of course, is dealing with the prejudices and snap judgments of others, especially supervisors or managers, even if it's just something as simple as "how unprofessional. "

Just make sure you're very clear on your employer's policy concerning those piercings and hair streaks. I'm all for expressing yourself, but you have to fit what your employer has laid out in their P&P manual to keep that job! :)

allnurses Guide · May 19, 2014

I can only imagine that the main posters who have an issue in this post are overweight or are otherwise deemed unattractive.

I don't think so. I'm not overweight or unattractive. I just know that there are people who appear overweight because they are on steroids related to a life-threatening disease and still drag their sore bodies to work every day, or they are taking a psych drug that has weight gain as a side effect, or . . .well there are lots of "ors" out there. Appearing overweight can have many causes and to me it is the height of unfairness to restrict a nurse who fits into one of those categories from doing part of his or her job because some people have decided appearance in the absence of any other information is enough to sanction a nurse in some way.

KJ87, BSN, RN · May 19, 2014

A clean, healthy appearance isn't all about size. We are still size obsessed, and feature focused, it's sad. Yes, I am a morbidly obese healthcare professional, but as far as I know that has not had a negative impact on me getting the jobs I want or effectively educating patients on healthy lifestyles. Attitude seems to be winning out over appearances more and more. That's a shift I can get behind.