Times continue to change, and today, people still judge against a person’s physical appearance. As retailing companies become more competitive with each other, they continue to look for more ways to bring customers into their stores, which includes hiring employees solely based on their appearance than their abilities. In the article, “Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination” by Steven Greenhouse, published in The New York Times on July 13, 2003, it talks about whether hiring employees based only on their appearance is morally acceptable, or not. The author references Marshal Cohen, an industry analyst with the NPD Group, a market research company, who defends the practice of hiring as “...necessary and smart…” (17). As “necessary and smart” as it may be, this process of hiring employees is ultimately unfair to those who may have the right skills, but not have the right “look” the company is trying to project.
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Serrano, a former manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, who was instructed to hire only attractive-looking people, but later quit after refusing to accept a transfer. “‘If that person said, ‘I never worked in retailing before,’ we said: ‘Who cares? We’ll hire you.’ But if someone came in who had lots of retail experience and not a pretty face, we were told not to hire them at all’” (13). This describes that companies encourage their employees to only look for those who have the “face” that the company wants to project, and promote. Also, it shows that, still, there are people who are willing to judge against a person’s appearance even for something that doesn’t necessarily require it to look a certain way - companies, including their employees, need to realize that people cannot completely control their
Serrano, a former manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, who was instructed to hire only attractive-looking people, but later quit after refusing to accept a transfer. “‘If that person said, ‘I never worked in retailing before,’ we said: ‘Who cares? We’ll hire you.’ But if someone came in who had lots of retail experience and not a pretty face, we were told not to hire them at all’” (13). This describes that companies encourage their employees to only look for those who have the “face” that the company wants to project, and promote. Also, it shows that, still, there are people who are willing to judge against a person’s appearance even for something that doesn’t necessarily require it to look a certain way - companies, including their employees, need to realize that people cannot completely control their