Want a job? Lose the weight!

When I wrote my now infamous post recalling how I had helped women with very large - "Hope Diamond" - engagement rings by advising them not to wear them to job interviews, I was doing what I always do on LinkedIn: sharing real world experiences to help job seekers. After all, it is better to learn from others' mistakes than from the alternative.

So the advice was, if you are doing everything else correctly and the only thing unique about you is the rock on your finger, don't wear it. The result:

First, I was accused of misogyny. That did not make any sense because if I hate women, why would I offer them advice that worked?

Second, I was accused of being sexist because I only wrote about women and should have written about men wearing Rolexes. This made no sense since an engagement ring - the subject of the post - is not something women buy for themselves and there is no engagement gift given by women to men. But the point was well taken and I wrote a second post about Rolexes, basically saying the same thing. My advice is always: dress conservatively.

Third, the idea that I would base a conclusion on half a dozen examples (I had estimated that I had given the same advice to about six women, all of whom accepted it and all of whom credited me with their getting job offers), meant that there were not enough examples for a valid conclusion to be drawn. In point of fact, six is more than enough. Look it up! There are 200 million eligible voters in the United States. For a national public opinion poll to be valid only 1,000 respondents are necessary. You do the math!

Fourth, the fact that the advice worked was almost universally ignored.

And, fifth, and most remarkable of all, people actually disputed the fact that interviewers look at the candidates that they are interviewing and draw conclusions based on what they see.

(I am ignoring the even more ridiculous reactions: That the silly explanations I gave for why there could be a negative response to a huge engagement ring - one from the male, and one from the female perspective - what are called ad absurdum - were actually thought to be my true feelings; the fact that, at best, only lip service was given to the women who wrote their personal stories confirming the accuracy of my advice; and the fact that over 1,500 people have "liked" my posts was totally ignored.)

Prior to my LinkedIn post going viral, I had obtained massive media exposure. Using HARO, I had been quoted in over 600 articles, appearing in more than 400 publications, across the US and in 23 foreign countries. (Most can be found on the Library page of my website.) In order to keep track, I set up a Google alert (something I strongly recommend job seekers do so that they are aware of anything written about them on the web which an employer might discover). Over the weekend I received the Google alert which is the photo at the top of this post.

I had to laugh. Originally I had written about very large "Hope Diamond" engagement rings. That was twisted into all engagement rings. The next thing I knew it was also being claimed that I was advising to leave wedding rings at home. And someone even wrote about hiding children. I did not know whether to laugh or cry!

And then I got this Google Alert, to wit, apparently, we have gone from jewelry to obesity. Well, not exactly.

If you read the article, I am not the one telling women to lose weight. The "credit" I am given is simply for having written the article about engagement rings. The author of the article, based on academic research showing that weight can be a factor in choosing between job candidates, linked my advice to the findings of the researchers. That is a compliment for which I am very appreciative as it confirms my message:

So ladies (and gents), please remember: Whatever an interviewer sees matters. They may not mention something to you out of fear of being sued or for some other reason. So you may never know what the problem was that they had with you.

Therefore, when preparing for an interview make certain the only things an interviewer takes note of are your intelligence (by the quality of your answers and questions) and your sincerity (by your body language and, especially, you eyes). Everything else should be irrelevant. If they notice something else, you might be in trouble.

(Just as an aside, and I am not an attorney, but based on my research, it appears that it may be lawful to discriminate on the basis of weight. While it may be a protected class if viewed as a health issue, there is such a thing as a "bona fide occupational qualification" which means, in this case, for example, an obese person could not work as a flight attendant on a commercial airline. Other than that, the law is murky at best.)

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Bruce Hurwitz is an executive recruiter, career counselor and business advisor. His posts on LinkedIn have been read over a quarter of a million times and have garnered international media attention.  In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, he chairs their Entrepreneurs Network, hosts their weekly podcast – The Voice of Manhattan Business – and serves as an Ambassador. An advocate for the protection of job seekers, visit the homepage of his website, www.hsstaffing.com, to read about questionable offerings of so-called job search assistance companies.