capitalize on beauty not obesity

Gaynor is 22, just out of college and newly married. She is well aware that men are hired on qualifications and women are employed on their physical appearance, and she's gearing her job search towards making sure that employers pay attention to her beautiful face rather than her overweight body.

"From the neck up I'm OK," laughs Gaynor, "and I'm not worried about my weight at all. It didn't stop me finding a great guy, and it won't stop me finding a great job."

Without her husband's support, though, Gaynor would be having a really bad time looking for work.

"He's an ace guy," explains Gaynor, "and says I don't have to work, but I really want to get the house paid off as quickly as possible so that we can start a family."

Gaynor has read just about every book on the market about job hunting, and all of them seem to say that it is not considered proper to include your photograph in your CV.

"Well, for men maybe that's good advice," says Gaynor, "but for women it's very bad advice as it's totally inconsistent with what employers really need to know about you."

"Let's face it," she says, "men are employed on credentials but women are employed on their physical appearance."

Gaynor has discovered that she's gained more opportunities for interviews since she's included an image of herself on her CV.

"You should never send a regular photograph," laughs Gaynor, "just a small digital image that you insert at the top left hand corner of your CV."

Gaynor would be the first person to admit that she's playing on her beautiful face to get a foot in the door, and it works. Before she got smart and changed her CV to include a picture of herself, she never got invited to interviews.

"Two out of three job applications I send with a photo-CV are acknowledged with an interview," says Gaynor. "And whether or not I get the job doesn't matter. It's getting a foot in the door that's important. They will remember my face and hopefully forget my body."

Prior to having her photograph professionally taken and included in her CV, Gaynor had relied on two basic CVs that she altered slightly for every job she applied for. And she had no luck whatsoever. Not one interview.

"When everyone's CV looks the same, with just a name on the top that distinguishes it from everyone else's," explains Gaynor, "you really need an edge and a photograph is the way to gain it - especially if your face is your one good asset like mine is."

Gaynor had a choice to go to one of those glamor studios and have an airbrushed photograph of herself taken, but she chose instead to go to a regular photographer and have a natural picture taken. Of twenty shots, she chose one that she liked - actually the photographer chose another one, but she felt more comfortable with the one she had chosen - and had it digitally sized to suit her CV.

Until she figured out how to embed her image in a text document Gaynor had a lot of hassles sending the image-CV by e-mail. She send two files - her CV in doc format and the image in jpg format.

"Mainly, I prefer to target employers directly by snail mail because the image-CV looks fantastic in printed format," says Gaynor. "I could have printed it in color, but chose to go black and white instead because I feel that black and white photographs are generally more attractive than colored ones."

"What employers want to know about women is not whether they're raving beauties," says Gaynor, "but whether they're reasonably attractive. And just about every woman can make herself look reasonably attractive in a photograph. Nobody will guess in a million years from my photograph that I'm overweight, and I'm just banking on the fact that my face will launch me into an interview and ultimately a good job."

Usually Gaynor wears glasses but she took them off for the photo shoot. Of course, if she gets a job she's going to have to wear glasses but the object of the CV is to gain the employer's attention and get an interview, not to expose all her faults.

"Because education doesn't count for much these days, anything you can do to improve your chances of getting a foot in the door is well worth trying," laughs Gaynor. "And I don't believe that being overweight is going to disqualify me."

"I got a husband, didn't I?"