Image and Your Career

We all no doubt have heard the term “dress for success” – however, just how important is image when it comes to your career anyways? Well, as it turns out, the image you project has quite a bit to do with your overall career success. After all, you do have to look the part and project the correct attitude if you wish to be hired for a certain position and/ or you want to be promoted to a position with more responsibility.

In fact, besides what you have to say, how you dress yourself, your posture, your body language and other factors are determining factors in a job interview. Thus, the overall package is extremely important when it comes to whether employers will hire to promote you.
What can you do then to project a more polished and professional image?

Be respectful of others. In other words then, you should always be on time, be reliable, and accept responsibility for actions.

Maintain proper eye contact. As non-verbal communication skills are so vital, it is really important that you maintain the proper level of eye contact. Do remember that if you maintain too little eye contact, people may regard you to be untrustworthy. However, if you do maintain too much eye contact, people may think that you are staring – and that is not a good thing of course.

Be mindful of your habits. If you have a habit of twirling your ring when you are nervous or tapping your foot repeatedly, people may perceive you to be impatient or nervous – and thus, these habits will definitely hinder your professional image.

Ensure that you clothes actually fit you. Better still, you should consider wearing a tailored jacket. Along similar lines, you should make sure that your clothes are wrinkle-free and your shoes are polished.

Besides these specific tips, you should also make sure that:

* You do not wear fragrance or you only wear a minimal amount of fragrance.

* You wear a minimal amount of jewelry.

* Clean fingernails and use hand cream for dryness

* You hair is neatly cut and well-groomed at all times.

* Your hands and nails are always in presentable condition.

* Your teeth are brushed and your breath is “odor-free”.

There you go! You are now well on your way to projecting a professional image – and enhancing your career prospects in the process.

Larisa Redins is a full time writer and editor with degrees in both Arts and Biological Science. She writes about career issues and other topics for a variety of international websites, magazines, and businesses.