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Looking for the "edge"

Job seekers turn to cosmetic surgery

By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz | RedEye

July 14, 2008

Stephen Greenberg, a plastic surgeon, with a patient at his office in Woodbury. (Newsday/Alejandra Villa, Newsday)

As Janine Seck searched for a new job last summer, she couldn't help but feel she was off her game.

Though her resume boasted 15 years of retail management experience, the 42-year-old felt she looked tired and not as fresh as the bouncy twentysomethings vying for the same positions. Despite a new haircut and updated wardrobe, Seck sensed her interviewers were as conscious of her aging face as she was.

"You could kind of tell with those cute questions, like asking when I graduated from college," said Seck, of Old Town. "They were trying to figure out how old I was."

After eight unsuccessful interviews, Seck last August did what she had previously only associated with Hollywood vanity: She got Botox injections in her forehead and around her eyes to smooth the lines and wrinkles she felt made her look weary.

Six interviews later, she got a job with an outside recruiting firm—and she credits Botox with helping to get her groove back.

"After the Botox, I marched into the interviews with much more confidence," she said. "I guess I wasn't afraid to smile as much."

For some job seekers, a good suit and a firm handshake just won't cut it in today's competitive job market. They're turning to cosmetic surgery—and particularly Botox--to give them an edge. About two-thirds of cosmetic surgeons surveyed this year by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery said men and women were requesting cosmetic surgery to remain competitive in the workplace.

While job-related cosmetic surgery has been a trend for the past several years, thanks mostly to the ease of Botox and other non-invasive cosmetic procedures like Restylane, the current economic downturn is heightening job instability and pushing people to look for any advantage, some doctors say.

"People will tell me that they've lost their job and they have to look good for interviews," said Dr. Stan Kovak of the Midwest Dermatologic Laser & Vein Centre in Elmhurst. "They're trying to compete with the younger people coming up the ladder."

Even young people are getting Botox to compete with those younger ladder climbers.

Actor Jamey Nash, 32, has been getting Botox every three to four months for the past year and a half in order to have "a fresher look" when he goes on auditions. He started the injections after noticing scowl lines starting to form between his eyebrows and on his forehead, and crow's-feet around his eyes.

"When I would look in the mirror, I would see that my face just looked tired," said Nash, who lives in Edgewater and does mostly independent films and promotional work.

Since getting Botox, Nash said he has been cast for roles 10 years younger than his real age. And even though Botox works by paralyzing the facial muscles so that you can't make certain expressions, Nash said it hasn't hurt his ability to act—at least, not completely.

"There are some expressions that I have more difficulty doing," Nash said. "Like, I can look sad, but I can't look pitifully sad."

While looks matter for sales and acting jobs, other industries value competence and experience regardless of the wrinkles those qualities might come with. Chicago executive coach Jackie Sloane said the characteristics that often make young employees desirable—flexibility, high energy and enthusiasm, for example—are more about attitude than looks.

"[Employers] want to know, do you understand what they're trying to do? Do you care? And can you excel at it?" said Sloane, president of Sloane Communications.

If looking youthful does matter at work, Sloane said people can do healthier things, like exercising and eating well, to improve themselves physically. They might also assess whether it's time to move onto another job that doesn't mind a few gray hairs.

It's an old and ugly truth that it pays to be young and beautiful.

Studies have shown that people who are younger, taller, thinner and generally more attractive are more likely to be hired, promoted and paid more than their physically less-fortunate counterparts, according to Gordon Patzer, a professor at Roosevelt University and author of "Looks: Why They Matter More Than You Ever Imagined."

According to a 2005 study published by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, women applying to entry-level jobs were 40 percent more likely to get a job interview if they were younger than 50 years old than if they were 50 or older, based on nothing but the high school graduation date on the resume. People are hard-wired to prefer the young and healthy-looking, Patzer said. (Blame it on Disney, advertising or our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who valued the ability to spear a mammoth.)

"Wrinkles and age are perceived as more tired, less energetic and less productive," he said. "It's a gut reaction."

Some frustrated job hunters resort to the scalpel to make themselves more marketable. Dr. Gregory Wiener, a plastic surgeon on the Northwest Side, said a patient in her 50s recently requested a full face-lift and eyebrow lift because she was continually getting beat out for sales positions by younger peers.

But most people opt for the needle. Approved for cosmetic use in 2002, Botox is by far the most common cosmetic procedure, with more than 4.6 million injections last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

"It's quick, it's easy, there's no downtime," Wiener said. Botox—botulinum toxin type A, which in large doses is highly poisonous—starts working as soon as two days after treatment and lasts about three months. Rendering muscles incapable of contracting, Botox was originally manufactured to treat eye and muscle spasms.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says possible side effects of Botox are droopy eyelids, bruising and the risk of the body becoming immune to it. Cosmetic surgeons say it's extremely safe, though some studies have raised questions. The FDA in February announced that Botox was linked to respiratory failure and death in some cases where the toxin had spread from the injection site to other parts of the body--with the most severe reactions happening in children treated with Botox for cerebral palsy (not an FDA-approved use). A 2005 report said there were 28 Botox-related deaths, though none were from cosmetic use.

With job-related Botox, the danger may be that it deepens the pressure people feel to battle aging like it's a terrible disease.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette, resident scholar of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and author of "Aged by Culture," said marketing by the beauty industry—or, as she prefers to call it, the "uglification industry," because it makes people feel ugly—inundates people with messages that they should be dissatisfied with how they look.

In reality, though, "there's a tremendous amount of resistance to the cult of youth," Gullette said, adding that there's no evidence you can Botox your way to a better job. While she doesn't criticize people for decisions to get cosmetic surgery, she said feeding into the idea that "youthful" is better can perpetuate age discrimination, a very real problem in the workplace.

"We want people to defy an ageist culture, because an ageist culture is as ugly as a racist culture and a sexist culture," she said.