Do I have to look ATTRACTIVE in order to fit in at work? (WOMAN)
Hi, I am about to start work at an investment bank and on the quest to lose 40-50lbs (so I can be 100lbs etc) because all the women I have seen basically look like models. I am average, I would be considered "exotic" so not white lol, but have a lot of potential because I am somewhat cute. But, do you think looking really toned/slim/thin + attractive/well put together will help me settle in quicker in the workplace. I don't want to be the ugly fat chick no one speaks with at work or never gets invited out for drinks.
Guys, be honest with me..
Not sure how short you are and losing 50 lbs within any reasonable timeframe would certainly be pretty unhealthy. If you can get into the 120-130lb range you should be fine. At the end of the day, banking is a sales job so you want to be relatively presentable and well put together. It would likely help you fit in a little bit but I really wouldn't stress out about it too much. I'm am curious though as to which bank is filled with "models" as it certainly seems like I may have picked the wrong one if that's the case ha.
I am 5ft4 -- I will be heading to DB soon. So, 120-30? That sounds doable. I just don't want to be the fat whale in the room. So, not too thin?
Could you tell me a celebrity body you think is pretty on point?
Good to know that apparently DB is full of hotties haha.
Honestly, to David's point, I really wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as your clothes fits you correctly, if you can get to that 120-ish range you'll be good. Celebrity body is a bit of a silly question as you really just have to work with what you have. The challenge for you from the sounds of it will be keeping the weight off once you start if you don't have a very fast metabolism. Seamless every night can add up pretty quickly if you're not being active.
the men in banking aren't the belle of the ball either so i wouldnt stress too much
Your question makes it sound like today is your first day on this planet
Just be a nice person a good coworker, and people will like you. Unless you're looking to shit where you eat, and be the office hoe, in which case you better be good looking (and have outstanding oral skills").
office hoe doe. lordbendtner knows COYG
LOL, gooner are we?
I agree with the prevailing sentiments in this thread. Your peers, co-workers and directors will care far, far more about the quality of your work and how you fit in the team than they will about your weight and appearance.
Let's be honest--performance matters MOST, but appearance, ESPECIALLY for women, makes a substantial difference in how women are treated. I see it literally 10 feet outside of my office. The hot, incompetent girl has perfect job security and is friends with the entire office (ironically with me being the exception); the unattractive but highly competent woman is constantly battling for a modicum of respect and is always teetering on the verge of a layoff.
Let's just be intellectually honest about the reality of the world. I'm actually a little stunned that a place as politically incorrect as WSO is dripping with such insufferable bullsh*t in this thread.
The competent, unattractive woman is teetering on the brink of career oblivion?
I think this is more of a 'problems in your shop's culture' thing then 'problems endemic across the industry' thing.
If the OP is genuine, being physically attractive generally improves the quality of people's interactions in life period (not always, though...), I'd say, but is hardly a prerequisite to a successful career. Presentation will be judged, though, and anyone can put effort into presenting themselves.
Not just at my shop. Without naming names, a prestigious NYC REIT, too, where she's worked before. This lady is killer at her job--a developer who is a trained and licensed architect from a top 5 program, hard-working, incredibly experienced and much better at her job than the younger men above her on the hierarchy. And I know what she gets paid and it ain't pretty based on her experience. Women aren't discriminated against--unattractive women are. Anyone who says otherwise is completely full of shit or is hopeless naive--and I'm not sure what's worse.
The hot women get paid less too, if not even less than a skilled female
The thing with hot girls is that they usually aren't that sharp. No one has ever really corrected or criticized them, so how would they know any better. If they do happen to be smarter than average (which is not difficult at all), they probably grew up being told how amazing they were, resulting in their becoming overconfident in their intellectual abilities. It's like how special Ed teachers tell their Down syndrome kids that their finger painting is really, really good, wow Monet-level shit right there
So they are confident, which is a good trait for any human being, but also 1) unrealistic in what they will be able to accomplish, 2) unaware of their actual level of intelligence in comparison to people who are legitimate dweebs, and 3) incapable of working hard to the degree that has been expected of less attractive people striving to reach the same endpoints. So they will crush the first couple rounds of interviews because they are so pleasant to speak with and because their words make it sound like they have a solid skill set and understanding of the industry. But then, oh shit, they bomb the technicals. But they seem so sorry, and they proceed to nod a lot while we point out all of their errors. "Oh, wow, yea, I totally meant to use (1-r)^t, not draw a picture of a rainbow." And it isn't like this shit is hard--a monkey could do it. A hot girl will improve culture too, and help gain points for diversity. Make her an offer!
First week is great; she really wants to learn. Second week is kind of shaky, but we all have our own learning curves. Third week is when shit hits the fan--hey, rami, holden, yang, where the hell is HotGirl? What do you mean she left at 6:30? She had to go to happy hour..?
The higher ups will learn her name while calling everyone else "hey you" and will be more flexible with her at the beginning sure, although they may talk to her a bit more slowly without realizing it. But when the cute little girl fucks shit up for everyone else because it is discovered that she is actually retarded, she is not so cute anymore. The rest of her class, still bitter about the extra attention she received at the beginning, will snicker behind her back. Associates won't spend their time helping her with simple tasks because their efforts will be futile/ they have finally transitioned into asexual beings after a thousand nights of solitude. No one will give her anything substantial to do, and the staffer will tell her that he'll definitely let her know if someone shoots something over. But you know what's over? Any chance of her getting a return offer.
But the unattractive girl by the name of "hey you" who knows how to finish her shit correctly will probably be asked to come back next year. You know, diversity. So, no, a hot girl with no skills does not have job security just because she is hot. We work in buildings filled with people who are obsessed with money. Greedy, hardened, soul-less motherfuckers who understand how every transaction/ employee/ decision will net them another dollar. So a hot but incapable chick is of no use to them, even with regard to sales, because who ever heard of a 52-year-old client picking a group just because he thought the 20-year-old girl sitting in on the meeting was cute lol
Source- had a retarded cute chick in our SA class last year
Hottest girl in my IB class (~80 ppl total , ~20 women) was the only one to get less than a 3 out of 5 on her first year review. Third hottest was fired for not passing her FINRA exams (only one to whom that happened). Nobody is denying being attractive helps, but your view is pretty unrealistic. Nobody in their 1st year is gonna go out on a limb for a marginally hotter analyst for that reason alone.
For the sake of being candid, being totally gross (like, REALLY overweight or not hygienic) will put you at a serious disadvantage. There's a reasonable chance 160 qualifies as really overweight at 5'4 but I can't know for certain.
you should get/stay in shape for a plethora of reasons. mainly because it gives you confidence and helps your energy level, both of which are crucial at work. subscribe to women's health, plenty of ideas there.
don't put your pussy where your paycheck is.
you should always try to look good, regardless of genetics. dress well, smell good, go easy on the makeup, have good posture, all that stuff. remember, it's a client facing business, and even though you're an analyst, presentation counts.
Couldn't agree more, I definitely wouldn't recommend dropping trou and rubbing your vagina against an ATM machine
No, getting down to 100 pounds won't make much of a difference.
First of all, there are better things you should be focusing on. It will be much more important that you listen to instructions, are easy to work with, and think through things. Well-groomed and presentable is important, but you obviously have that down or you wouldn't have gotten the job.
Second, 100 pounds at 5'4" is too thin. If you are dead-set on loosing weight because of existing insecurities: 120-135 would put you in the slim with curves territory that most guys like and looks good in clothing (think Mila Kunis, Hayden Panetierre, etc.). Someone with small bone structure and higher fat for their weight can look elegant and ladylike at 5'4" 100 lbs but those people will naturally sit at that BMI. 100 pounds and any sort of muscle is going to put you in "body of a teenage boy" territory and that is not a good look.
The attractiveness of the recruiters you saw is not indicative of the general population in the office. Focus on health and being a good employee when you start.
"Because I want to fit in."
If you lose the weight that would be great for you! If not then just be yourself and let the chips fall where they may.
Dear sister, there is no need to try and impress people by trying to fit a certain image. As long as you sure that you are happy and confident in yourself, people will respect you and like you for that.
Just do you, the rest will sort itself out.
In any -sales- role, with client facing opportunities, what I have seen and what people have mentioned is good presentation. However, first thing's first, it is far important to get the job down and do well rather then being fit-in-shape presentable. Quality of work will go further along besides what you look like, after all.
If you start eating healthier, your body will slowly and gradually (healthily) tone itself down to manageable levels and that is when you start working out you will feel the difference.
First things first, get the job down! Good luck!
Hiten
Looks matter in this business, even for men and especially for women. Don't do unhealthy "extreme" weight loss, but yeah, 100-120 lbs (depending on your body structure) should be your ultimate goal over the course of the next 24 months or so.
Appearance matters a ton on a subconscious level; a simple Google Scholar search should point you to studies on how the performance evaluation of everything from interviewees to athletes is substantially influenced by how they look. You don't need to crash diet or do something silly, but emphasizing fitness for the coming 2 years to get to a more attractive weight range will help you in your personal and professional life.
Disclaimer: I am a guy that used to be 155 pounds at 6'5, and now is an athletic 220 pounds at the same height. The difference in my energy levels and how I am treated is night and day, and I can imagine it is even more applicable to women.
MS for being such a lanky, scrawny, loser.
MS for being used to be skinny AF? Excuse me for having a health condition in my youth. Do you disagree that if she would be in better shape it will positively impact her evaluation? She asked for opinions, and I think that people tend to evaluate non-overweight people better all things held constant.
I would hope your height hasn't changed...
Appearance does matter in life. Yet, I still know plenty of popular and successful people who are heinously unattractive.
If you're actually serious about losing that amount the truth is you shouldn't be aiming to lose more than 2 lbs a week, Anymore and you'll just burn up a greater amount of your lean body mass. Just find your BMR and remember.... if you believe in yourself, anavar is possible ;)
No. Unless you are a total bridge-troll and / or dress like a slob, no one cares. I know misogyny exists in finance, and the former frat type guys you work with will definitely say shit in jest about the women they work with when they're drinking together outside of work, but if you work with professionals nobody cares on a day to day basis.
The few females that I've worked with, my opinion of them has always been off of their merits or lack-there-of; and would say that goes the same for the other guys on my team's. If you're the only girl starting in out in a male dominated team, yeah you'll probably have a bit of a stigma because people are flawed and are uncomfortable with change to status quo. But, at least based on my experience, all you have to do is flat knock it out of the park on your first deal and just like that you're just another one of the "guys".
My first PE job, when I was a second year associate, one of the new 1st year associates was a girl. She was the only women on the entire investment team and on the oil & gas vertical which is pretty old school boys club. This individual, by most cultural standards of beauty, wasn't what you'd call an attractive girl. Naturally some jokes were made at her expense behind closed doors but other than that she wasn't at any type of disadvantage compared to any other 1st year. The first deal she was on was with me. It was a new deal for an E&P venture that required some very tough modeling to get the right valuation. She was from a midstream group in IBD, and anyone who is familiar with doing E&P valuation knows it can be very tough and different than other industries. I thought I was going to have to babysit her the whole time...wrong. After the first strategy sit down we had together she was like "got it," and freaking cranked out two huge blow-down NAV models by end of the next business day and was running the drill-out model be the end of the next week. Total modeling freak and turned out to be the best of all the associates and probably VP's too.
Really, think so? Please be more specific
Also go fuck yourself
if you are not pretty you will just be treated like a guy, ie how it should be. Look at the bright side, if you achieve something it will be 100% deserved.
Sometimes I think I've been having a hard time fitting in with my colleagues because I am not showing enough of my bulge.
i'll just leave it at this: i've never seen an out-of-shape senior level investment banker in my career. not saying you are out of shape though. just something to note.
Spend a bit more time in Houston and you'll run into more than few
It's true.. most women at my bank are attractive as well as smart.
Well being competent is important but physical appearance is also important despite what people say aloud being in shape is much better than being fatty of the week. People on a subconscious level have their bias's I included but to really win friends and influence people, mannerism, hobbies, competence and appearance all work in your favor.
And anyone trying to lose weight the correct way should PM me.
Thanks!
This is hilarious. So many people using a sample size of 1 anecdotal experience to determine whether women are or aren't widely discriminated against. "Source- had a retarded cute chick in our SA class last year"? Absolute gold.
What a ridiculous thread. IB isn't a profession that easily lends itself to healthy behaviors, so don't expect to be the lone non-fitness model among your group.
Let me guess...you're Asian?
Probably not.
OP sounds like a dude with a sick message board fetish
Any time y'all want to quit feeding the troll would be cool....
this is the most ridicolous post I have seen on WSO this year...
We need pictures in order to make an accurate diagnosis. Preferably in a swimsuit (two piece ONLY).
is there any other kind of swimsuit? I mean I thought the only women who wear one pieces are either morbidly obese, hiding a scar, or both.
Exactly, it's a test.
just be a normal person and show up ready to work. thats all anyone expects
OP, stop the BS and tell us where you stand (how attractive) on the physical side, use the scale of 1 to 10.
If you are a 5 or below you need not worry about anything, only worry if you are above average (7 and above).
It totally depends upon your profession. Somewhere, they choose employees with good personality.
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