What would you think if an overweight person worked in a health & beauty clinic?

[Jabbathejob]

I've found the perfect role in terms of hours that can work around the DC, pay and experience, but I'm overweight and it's for a health & beauty clinic. Would I be mad to apply? Would they hire someone who's overweight, non-glamerous and not young, but who's otherwise ideal for the role? What would you think if they had overweight staff in a clinic like this?

YABU- they won't hire someone who's nearing middle age and overweight.

YANBU- go for it! They wouldn't mind.

I think it's the sort of job where you'd need to appear well groomed, with good make up, hair and smart clothes - all of which should be achievable whatever your age and weight. Maybe find out what products they use and use at least some of the same things yourself in the run up to interview, assuming you get one, then you can show product knowledge.

I'd want someone glamorous, someone who looked better than me!

There's no reason why you can't make yourself glamorous, it doesn't have to cost lots of money.

Your weight should be fine, most people are at least a little bit overweight now, as long as they don't offer weight loss stuff and you're sitting there at 20 stone

I would not take their advice!

There was a woman trying to sell a package of some sort of machine that can help with inch loss reduction or something - all I could think was 'you're fat' it clearly doesn't work.

Same with women with rough skin and trying to sell you facials etc - they clearly haven't worked.

OK. Being honest, you will be the first impression any client gets of the place.

So I do think they'll be looking for 'well presented'. But that doesn't have to mean glamorous. Or thin.

"Well groomed" is a good term.

Apply for the job and practice your skills, OP. Even if you don't need them for this job, being well presented for other interviews will be helpful. Best of luck 🤞

My entire career has been in beauty. I am 52, a size 22 but I’m quite glam. In fact a lot of people are perfectly happy to see someone that is not perfect. The world is pretty inclusive, it hasn’t always been the case in beauty.
Go for it and don’t doubt yourself.

Weight would not bother me but I would expect you to have great hair/skin/nails/eyebrows/makeup, and I say that as someone currently rocking the through-a-hedge-backwards look

Mmmm it’s tricky in all honesty. I had to see a nurse about my cholesterol last week, it’s a bit on the high side. She told me to cut out butter, red meat and booze. I’m size 10 and teetotal and she was, I would guess a size 22 ish. I took what she said on board but I maybe wrongly assumed she couldn’t lead the healthiest lifestyle herself.

This. Just make sure you are clean and tidy.

Okish skin is the only one I have out of that list.

Yeah but even if she doesn't you weren't there for her, you were there for you.

Even if she ate nothing but salad, it's not going to make your cholesterol any lower or higher 🤷‍♂️

Yes I think weight is fine but you would need to look like you used the products. I had a job in a high end dentistry place and I have terrible teeth, I was let go two weeks in. Lol

Really?! Surely they would have seen your teeth at interview? Sorry that happened.

*Edited for autocorrect gone mad.

Don't talk yourself out of applying for a job based on assumptions about what other people might think.

Ultimately I suspect the salon owners and managers are likely to be people who are interested in beauty products and health services, and that will influence who they want to recruit. If you show up to an interview and your own grooming indicates that you clearly don’t have any interest in their business and its services, and they think your engagement with their customers will be limited because you don’t have knowledge of or interest in the things they’re paying a lot of money for, you’re not going to be the most appealing candidate.

If you really want the job, you’ll need to give the impression that you have at least a passing interest in the industry it’s in and the customers and staff you’ll be talking to all day and potentially being asked to recommend things to as the “face” of the company.

Sounds like not the best job for you then maybe?

Thinking about it, as an overweight, middle-aged woman I would be much more trusting of beauty advice from someone of a similar age and size who looked good, than from some 20-year-old with model good looks who doesn't know what it is to spend hours trying to perfect your make-up and hair only to end up looking like Coco The Clown's fat granny😃

Get yourself on TikTok and brush up on your make up knowledge and then go for it!

Even if you prefer a Pamela look, nothing wrong with that. But as pp have said, you'd have to be very neat, so hair, nails done, clothes tidy and well fitted

Your size would not put me off at all (although I am on a weight loss journey myself) as long as you looked and acted the part

Best of luck x

It wouldn't even cross my mind, as long as they looked relatively well groomed (in the same way I'd hope my hairdresser had good hair and my eyebrow lady had good eyebrows!) and not a scruffy mess.

The only time weight would be an issue for me (and I say this as a size 20 woman!) Is for a personal trainer....and even then I'd be aware that there are plenty of factors that wouldn't necessarily mean they're not a good personal trainer!

For reception and booking I would expect you to be competent in systems, friendly, polite, knowledgeable about the services and helpful in general.

I'd expect you to be clean and dressed appropriately but to be honest I go to a restaurant and expect the serving staff to have ideally have tried the food so I'd just want you to have knowledge.

I actually hate going to beauty places where everyone is young and 'well groomed' I need a middle aged woman to do my waxes lol

I wouldn’t give two shits if they could do Botox without me looking like a man or an alien. Oh wait, I don’t get Botox because I don’t want to look like a man or an alien.

I do like a good massage. Plenty of weight to use as pressure is always a plus. That’s an advantage at least.

You can say what you like but sadly, employers do judge people on how they look when that person will be representing their business and the beauty industry is particularly superficial.

Who interviewed you then?

I wouldn’t care, I like places where people are friendly and welcoming and it doesn’t feel judgy.

I do like a good massage. Plenty of weight to use as pressure is always a plus. That’s an advantage at least.

Not for a receptionist it isn't.