Latest news with #graduationseason
Fast Company
3 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
People are eating up Walmart's custom cakes. Here's why they're so popular
Inside a Walmart store in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on a cake with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a buttercream rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert. It's graduation season, the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees the nation's largest retailer trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers' orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart's in-store bakeries. But there's no sugar-coating the importance the company places on its custom cake business. Its army of icing artisans are the highest paid hourly workers in a typical U.S. Walmart, excluding managers. Cake decorators earn an average of $19.25 per hour, compared with $18.25 for all non-managerial store workers, a company spokesperson said. Melissa Fernandez, 36, started working in the electronics area and then the wireless services department of the Walmart in North Bergen, New Jersey, before she transferred to the deli area in search of better pay. But Fernandez had her eye on a cake decorating job and after spending two months getting trained by a store colleague, she picked up a piping bag full-time in 2021. 'I love baking at home. I love painting,' Fernandez said. 'I love doing anything artistic, and I just always wanted to be a part of it.' After 11 years with Walmart, she said she now makes about $24.40 an hour. Despite their elite status within Walmart, the retailer's cake decorators have attracted detractors on social media. The company promotes its personalized baked goods on TikTok and encourages the workers behind such creations to do the same. Critics have accused Walmart decorators of stealing ideas and undercutting the work of professional cake artists with their low-priced products. After TikTok videos praising Walmart's $25 heart-shaped cakes with borders that resemble vintage lace cropped up before Valentine's Day this year, a few bakers produced their own videos explaining why their cakes cost so much more and critiquing Walmart's. Debates ensued in the comments sections over whether Walmart represented evils of capitalism or served the needs of the masses. A customized sheet cake that can be sliced to serve 96 people costs $59 at Walmart, about one-third to half the price that a nationwide sample of independent bakeries list online for similarly sized cakes. For $5.20 more, Walmart customers can add strawberry or 'Bavarian creme' fillings, which like the bare cakes, are vendor-supplied. The slice of the celebratory occasion cake market Walmart holds appears vast based on company-supplied figures. One out of four cakes sold in the U.S. comes from Walmart, and its employees will collectively decorate more than 1 million cakes during May and June, according to a company spokesperson. The number of cakes decorated each day at the location where Fernandez works nearly doubles to 50-60 when school graduations come around, compared to 30-35 a day during the rest of the year, said Michael DeMarco, the manager of the store's fresh food department. He credits the decorators' talent and promotional efforts on TikTok. 'We're getting a lot of repeat customers. We're doing a lot more business because of just the viral sensations,' DeMarco said. A TikTok video that showed Fernandez designing a $24 version of a customized bouquet cake — 12 cupcakes that are individually decorated and arranged to look like a bunch of flowers — received nearly a half-million views. The bouquet design was one of the North Bergen store's most popular cakes last month, a company spokesperson said. The dressy heart-shaped cakes, as well as cakes that resemble meals like sushi or a pile of spaghetti and meatballs, are popular too, she said. Fernandez also has created 'burn away' cakes: an iced cake topped with an image printed on paper, which is set ablaze to reveal a different image underneath. 'TikTok helps me stay up to date,' she said. 'A lot of trends that I see on there, within that week or within that month, customers will come asking about it. And we're pretty up to date as well.' Jazzing up a cake by hand requires skill, whether or not someone else did the baking, she said. Funneling buttercream frosting through a bag and various sized piping tips to yield the desired design without misplaced blobs is not the same as drawing or painting, Fernandez explained. 'There's a lot of pressure points that you have to practice in order to get the borders correct and the right thickness or the right texture,' she said. Tiffany Witzke, who has been a Walmart cake decorator since July 2016 and works at a store in Springfield, Missouri, has more than 912,000 followers on TikTok. The job attracts people who 'can be extremely skilled and talented,' Witzke said, adding that customers want increasingly complicated designs. 'When I first started, it was basically just borders and writing,' she said. 'Now, everybody wants more and more and more on their cake.' Liz Berman, owner of The Sleepy Baker, in Natick, Massachusetts, said she's not worried about losing customers to Walmart because of her attention to detail and the premium ingredients she uses. She charges $205 and up for a half-sized sheet cake, the bouquets made up of two dozen miniature cupcakes cost $110. All the cakes are made from scratch, and Berman said she designs everything herself. 'It's just a totally different business model,' she said. 'Everything I do is custom.' For Walmart, the cake decorating business delivers higher profit margins than some other areas, such as groceries and electronics, according to Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana. But it's also resonating with shoppers looking for affordable luxuries. 'We've gone into a period where the consumer is saying, 'This is good enough,'' Cohen said. Customers interviewed at the North Bergen store on a recent weekday seemed to be satisfied. George Arango, 34, picked up two customized cakes, one to celebrate a co-worker's retirement and the other for a colleague getting another job. After researching prices on various store websites, he decided to give Walmart a try. 'The price is fantastic,' he said. 'I'm walking out with two cakes for $40.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart's cake decorators stir up some rivalry with their affordable creations
NEW YORK (AP) — Inside a Walmart store in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on a cake with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a buttercream rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert. It's graduation season, the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees the nation's largest retailer trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers' orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart's in-store bakeries. But there's no sugar-coating the importance the company places on its custom cake business. Its army of icing artisans are the highest paid hourly workers in a typical U.S. Walmart, excluding managers. Cake decorators earn an average of $19.25 per hour, compared with $18.25 for all non-managerial store workers, a company spokesperson said. Melissa Fernandez, 36, started working in the electronics area and then the wireless services department of the Walmart in North Bergen, New Jersey, before she transferred to the deli area in search of better pay. But Fernandez had her eye on a cake decorating job and after spending two months getting trained by a store colleague, she picked up a piping bag full-time in 2021. 'I love baking at home. I love painting,' Fernandez said. 'I love doing anything artistic, and I just always wanted to be a part of it.' After 11 years with Walmart, she said she now makes about $24.40 an hour. Despite their elite status within Walmart, the retailer's cake decorators have attracted detractors on social media. The company promotes its personalized baked goods on TikTok and encourages the workers behind such creations to do the same. Critics have accused Walmart decorators of stealing ideas and undercutting the work of professional cake artists with their low-priced products. After TikTok videos praising Walmart's $25 heart-shaped cakes with borders that resemble vintage lace cropped up before Valentine's Day this year, a few bakers produced their own videos explaining why their cakes cost so much more and critiquing Walmart's. Debates ensued in the comments sections over whether Walmart represented evils of capitalism or served the needs of the masses. A customized sheet cake that can be sliced to serve 96 people costs $59 at Walmart, about one-third to half the price that a nationwide sample of independent bakeries list online for similarly sized cakes. For $5.20 more, Walmart customers can add strawberry or 'Bavarian creme" fillings, which like the bare cakes, are vendor-supplied. The slice of the celebratory occasion cake market Walmart holds appears vast based on company-supplied figures. One out of four cakes sold in the U.S. comes from Walmart, and its employees will collectively decorate more than 1 million cakes during May and June, according to a company spokesperson. The number of cakes decorated each day at the location where Fernandez works nearly doubles to 50-60 when school graduations come around, compared to 30-35 a day during the rest of the year, said Michael DeMarco, the manager of the store's fresh food department. He credits the decorators' talent and promotional efforts on TikTok. "We're getting a lot of repeat customers. We're doing a lot more business because of just the viral sensations,' DeMarco said. A TikTok video that showed Fernandez designing a $24 version of a customized bouquet cake — 12 cupcakes that are individually decorated and arranged to look like a bunch of flowers — received nearly a half-million views. The bouquet design was one of the North Bergen store's most popular cakes last month, a company spokesperson said. The dressy heart-shaped cakes, as well as cakes that resemble meals like sushi or a pile of spaghetti and meatballs, are popular too, she said. Fernandez also has created 'burn away' cakes: an iced cake topped with an image printed on paper, which is set ablaze to reveal a different image underneath. 'TikTok helps me stay up to date,' she said. 'A lot of trends that I see on there, within that week or within that month, customers will come asking about it. And we're pretty up to date as well.' Jazzing up a cake by hand requires skill, whether or not someone else did the baking, she said. Funneling buttercream frosting through a bag and various sized piping tips to yield the desired design without misplaced blobs is not the same as drawing or painting, Fernandez explained. 'There's a lot of pressure points that you have to practice in order to get the borders correct and the right thickness or the right texture,' she said. Tiffany Witzke, who has been a Walmart cake decorator since July 2016 and works at a store in Springfield, Missouri, has more than 912,000 followers on TikTok. The job attracts people who "can be extremely skilled and talented,' Witzke said, adding that customers want increasingly complicated designs. 'When I first started, it was basically just borders and writing," she said. 'Now, everybody wants more and more and more on their cake.' Liz Berman, owner of The Sleepy Baker, in Natick, Massachusetts, said she's not worried about losing customers to Walmart because of her attention to detail and the premium ingredients she uses. She charges $205 and up for a half-sized sheet cake, the bouquets made up of two dozen miniature cupcakes cost $110. All the cakes are made from scratch, and Berman said she designs everything herself. 'It's just a totally different business model," she said. 'Everything I do is custom.' For Walmart, the cake decorating business delivers higher profit margins than some other areas, such as groceries and electronics, according to Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana. But it's also resonating with shoppers looking for affordable luxuries. 'We've gone into a period where the consumer is saying, 'This is good enough,'" Cohen said. Customers interviewed at the North Bergen store on a recent weekday seemed to be satisfied. George Arango, 34, picked up two customized cakes, one to celebrate a co-worker's retirement and the other for a colleague getting another job. After researching prices on various store websites, he decided to give Walmart a try. 'The price is fantastic," he said. "I'm walking out with two cakes for $40.' Anne D'innocenzio, The Associated Press
The Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Walmart's cake decorators stir up some rivalry with their affordable creations
Inside a Walmart store in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on a cake with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a buttercream rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert. It's graduation season, the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees the nation's largest retailer trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers' orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart's in-store bakeries. But there's no sugar-coating the importance the company places on its custom cake business. Its army of icing artisans are the highest paid hourly workers in a typical U.S. Walmart, excluding managers. Cake decorators earn an average of $19.25 per hour, compared with $18.25 for all non-managerial store workers, a company spokesperson said. Melissa Fernandez, 36, started working in the electronics area and then the wireless services department of the Walmart in North Bergen, New Jersey, before she transferred to the deli area in search of better pay. But Fernandez had her eye on a cake decorating job and after spending two months getting trained by a store colleague, she picked up a piping bag full-time in 2021. 'I love baking at home. I love painting,' Fernandez said. 'I love doing anything artistic, and I just always wanted to be a part of it.' After 11 years with Walmart, she said she now makes about $24.40 an hour. Despite their elite status within Walmart, the retailer's cake decorators have attracted detractors on social media. The company promotes its personalized baked goods on TikTok and encourages the workers behind such creations to do the same. Critics have accused Walmart decorators of stealing ideas and undercutting the work of professional cake artists with their low-priced products. After TikTok videos praising Walmart's $25 heart-shaped cakes with borders that resemble vintage lace cropped up before Valentine's Day this year, a few bakers produced their own videos explaining why their cakes cost so much more and critiquing Walmart's. Debates ensued in the comments sections over whether Walmart represented evils of capitalism or served the needs of the masses. A customized sheet cake that can be sliced to serve 96 people costs $59 at Walmart, about one-third to half the price that a nationwide sample of independent bakeries list online for similarly sized cakes. For $5.20 more, Walmart customers can add strawberry or 'Bavarian creme" fillings, which like the bare cakes, are vendor-supplied. The slice of the celebratory occasion cake market Walmart holds appears vast based on company-supplied figures. One out of four cakes sold in the U.S. comes from Walmart, and its employees will collectively decorate more than 1 million cakes during May and June, according to a company spokesperson. The number of cakes decorated each day at the location where Fernandez works nearly doubles to 50-60 when school graduations come around, compared to 30-35 a day during the rest of the year, said Michael DeMarco, the manager of the store's fresh food department. He credits the decorators' talent and promotional efforts on TikTok. "We're getting a lot of repeat customers. We're doing a lot more business because of just the viral sensations,' DeMarco said. A TikTok video that showed Fernandez designing a $24 version of a customized bouquet cake — 12 cupcakes that are individually decorated and arranged to look like a bunch of flowers — received nearly a half-million views. The bouquet design was one of the North Bergen store's most popular cakes last month, a company spokesperson said. The dressy heart-shaped cakes, as well as cakes that resemble meals like sushi or a pile of spaghetti and meatballs, are popular too, she said. Fernandez also has created 'burn away' cakes: an iced cake topped with an image printed on paper, which is set ablaze to reveal a different image underneath. 'TikTok helps me stay up to date,' she said. 'A lot of trends that I see on there, within that week or within that month, customers will come asking about it. And we're pretty up to date as well.' Jazzing up a cake by hand requires skill, whether or not someone else did the baking, she said. Funneling buttercream frosting through a bag and various sized piping tips to yield the desired design without misplaced blobs is not the same as drawing or painting, Fernandez explained. 'There's a lot of pressure points that you have to practice in order to get the borders correct and the right thickness or the right texture,' she said. Tiffany Witzke, who has been a Walmart cake decorator since July 2016 and works at a store in Springfield, Missouri, has more than 912,000 followers on TikTok. The job attracts people who "can be extremely skilled and talented,' Witzke said, adding that customers want increasingly complicated designs. 'When I first started, it was basically just borders and writing," she said. 'Now, everybody wants more and more and more on their cake.' Liz Berman, owner of The Sleepy Baker, in Natick, Massachusetts, said she's not worried about losing customers to Walmart because of her attention to detail and the premium ingredients she uses. She charges $205 and up for a half-sized sheet cake, the bouquets made up of two dozen miniature cupcakes cost $110. All the cakes are made from scratch, and Berman said she designs everything herself. 'It's just a totally different business model," she said. 'Everything I do is custom.' For Walmart, the cake decorating business delivers higher profit margins than some other areas, such as groceries and electronics, according to Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana. But it's also resonating with shoppers looking for affordable luxuries. 'We've gone into a period where the consumer is saying, 'This is good enough,'" Cohen said. Customers interviewed at the North Bergen store on a recent weekday seemed to be satisfied. George Arango, 34, picked up two customized cakes, one to celebrate a co-worker's retirement and the other for a colleague getting another job. After researching prices on various store websites, he decided to give Walmart a try. 'The price is fantastic," he said. "I'm walking out with two cakes for $40.'
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Walmart's cake decorators stir up some rivalry with their affordable creations
NEW YORK (AP) — Inside a Walmart store in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on a cake with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a buttercream rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert. It's graduation season, the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees the nation's largest retailer trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers' orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart's in-store bakeries. But there's no sugar-coating the importance the company places on its custom cake business. Its army of icing artisans are the highest paid hourly workers in a typical U.S. Walmart, excluding managers. Cake decorators earn an average of $19.25 per hour, compared with $18.25 for all non-managerial store workers, a company spokesperson said. Melissa Fernandez, 36, started working in the electronics area and then the wireless services department of the Walmart in North Bergen, New Jersey, before she transferred to the deli area in search of better pay. But Fernandez had her eye on a cake decorating job and after spending two months getting trained by a store colleague, she picked up a piping bag full-time in 2021. 'I love baking at home. I love painting,' Fernandez said. 'I love doing anything artistic, and I just always wanted to be a part of it.' After 11 years with Walmart, she said she now makes about $24.40 an hour. Despite their elite status within Walmart, the retailer's cake decorators have attracted detractors on social media. The company promotes its personalized baked goods on TikTok and encourages the workers behind such creations to do the same. Critics have accused Walmart decorators of stealing ideas and undercutting the work of professional cake artists with their low-priced products. After TikTok videos praising Walmart's $25 heart-shaped cakes with borders that resemble vintage lace cropped up before Valentine's Day this year, a few bakers produced their own videos explaining why their cakes cost so much more and critiquing Walmart's. Debates ensued in the comments sections over whether Walmart represented evils of capitalism or served the needs of the masses. A customized sheet cake that can be sliced to serve 96 people costs $59 at Walmart, about one-third to half the price that a nationwide sample of independent bakeries list online for similarly sized cakes. For $5.20 more, Walmart customers can add strawberry or 'Bavarian creme' fillings, which like the bare cakes, are vendor-supplied. The slice of the celebratory occasion cake market Walmart holds appears vast based on company-supplied figures. One out of four cakes sold in the U.S. comes from Walmart, and its employees will collectively decorate more than 1 million cakes during May and June, according to a company spokesperson. The number of cakes decorated each day at the location where Fernandez works nearly doubles to 50-60 when school graduations come around, compared to 30-35 a day during the rest of the year, said Michael DeMarco, the manager of the store's fresh food department. He credits the decorators' talent and promotional efforts on TikTok. 'We're getting a lot of repeat customers. We're doing a lot more business because of just the viral sensations,' DeMarco said. A TikTok video that showed Fernandez designing a $24 version of a customized bouquet cake — 12 cupcakes that are individually decorated and arranged to look like a bunch of flowers — received nearly a half-million views. The bouquet design was one of the North Bergen store's most popular cakes last month, a company spokesperson said. The dressy heart-shaped cakes, as well as cakes that resemble meals like sushi or a pile of spaghetti and meatballs, are popular too, she said. Fernandez also has created 'burn away' cakes: an iced cake topped with an image printed on paper, which is set ablaze to reveal a different image underneath. 'TikTok helps me stay up to date,' she said. 'A lot of trends that I see on there, within that week or within that month, customers will come asking about it. And we're pretty up to date as well.' Jazzing up a cake by hand requires skill, whether or not someone else did the baking, she said. Funneling buttercream frosting through a bag and various sized piping tips to yield the desired design without misplaced blobs is not the same as drawing or painting, Fernandez explained. 'There's a lot of pressure points that you have to practice in order to get the borders correct and the right thickness or the right texture,' she said. Tiffany Witzke, who has been a Walmart cake decorator since July 2016 and works at a store in Springfield, Missouri, has more than 912,000 followers on TikTok. The job attracts people who 'can be extremely skilled and talented,' Witzke said, adding that customers want increasingly complicated designs. 'When I first started, it was basically just borders and writing,' she said. 'Now, everybody wants more and more and more on their cake.' Liz Berman, owner of The Sleepy Baker, in Natick, Massachusetts, said she's not worried about losing customers to Walmart because of her attention to detail and the premium ingredients she uses. She charges $205 and up for a half-sized sheet cake, the bouquets made up of two dozen miniature cupcakes cost $110. All the cakes are made from scratch, and Berman said she designs everything herself. 'It's just a totally different business model,' she said. 'Everything I do is custom.' For Walmart, the cake decorating business delivers higher profit margins than some other areas, such as groceries and electronics, according to Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana. But it's also resonating with shoppers looking for affordable luxuries. 'We've gone into a period where the consumer is saying, 'This is good enough,'' Cohen said. Customers interviewed at the North Bergen store on a recent weekday seemed to be satisfied. George Arango, 34, picked up two customized cakes, one to celebrate a co-worker's retirement and the other for a colleague getting another job. After researching prices on various store websites, he decided to give Walmart a try. 'The price is fantastic,' he said. 'I'm walking out with two cakes for $40.'
Forbes
18-05-2025
- General
- Forbes
‘Pretty Privilege': 20% Of Job Seekers Denied Jobs Based On Looks
During graduation season, thousands of fresh job seekers are going into their first interviews, but many are already feeling judged before they even speak. If you think looks don't matter anymore when you're applying for a job, you're dead wrong. It might seem shallow, but looking the part is still important in corporate America, according to a recent study that found your appearance is more likely to land the job you're applying for. It's called 'pretty privilege'--the notion that your looks can help you snag a job. There's a social media meme called 'face card' that describes people so attractive that they don't have to pay for anything, can score the best seat in the restaurant and get more hits on dating apps than an ordinary person. I can see you rolling your eyes, and mumbling that such a perspective is superficial and lame. Perhaps so, but unfortunately, science-backed research shows that 'pretty privilege' or beauty bias is a real phenomenon. And how you look can detrmine whether or not you snag your dream job. According to a 2022 study in the Harvard Business Review, certain physical features and accessories from profile pictures, give candidates an edge in hiring outcomes. When a candidate applies for a job online, a coat and tie, glasses, couture or a beard can make a big difference in whether they get hired. When a job seeker 'looks the part," as inferred from profile photographs, they have a better chance of nailing the position, according to the study. A more recent 2025 study of 2,000 people found that 56% of respondents believe 'pretty privilege' affects how people are treated at work, with 56% saying that having the face card means being treated better. Other common answers include better customer service (43%) and educational opportunities (20%). Nearly 20% claim they've been denied a job because of how they look. And 75% agree that society has more respect for good-looking people. On the flip side, 80% of respondents claimed to have faced at least one challenge due to being good-looking, with being objectified (20%) and facing additional pressure to always be pretty (20%) among the most common problems identified. Decades of research show that employers still judge applicants based on their appearance. Almost one-third of hiring managers find it difficult to ignore visible tattoos when considering job applicants. Visible piercings are a distraction for 28% of employers, and 25% admit they can't overlook how a potential employee is dressed for an interview. Overall, 90% of employers confess that having a professional appearance is an important aspect of successfully navigating the hiring process at their company. Attractive employees are more likely to get hired, garner more promotions, earn more money and climb the career ladder quicker and farther. Plus, attractive bosses get higher performance ratings by their employees than ordinary looking managers. Some experts say we tend to attribute more positive traits to attractive people, and it's this attribution more than sheer beauty that wins them the golden ticket. As the summer hiring season approaches, Marina Klimenka, co-founder of Luvly, shares practical tips on how to spot look-based bias in interviews and what to do if it happens to you. "The moment you enter the room or log into the call, your debutante ball has started, so watch the interviewer's face very carefully," Klimenka asserts. She says you can read a sudden raise of eyebrows or a strained smile as a subtle sign that the interviewer has certain expectations about your appearance. She suggests you not call it out, but instead, just take note of it. And if the interviewer spends most of the interview speaking vaguely or steering away from your experience, she predicts you've likely hit a bias wall. She suggests that if you know for sure, you can just breathe out and move on without internalizing the awkwardness as your fault. When the hiring manager compliments you during an interview, Klimenka recommends listening closely. She advocates that if the recruiter constantly compliments you more on factors unrelated to your role or competencies, pay attention. "Sure, compliments are always flattering," she adds. "But if that's all they're commenting on, and not your cases or skills, it means your look is doing the heavy lifting in their eyes. It's proof they're reacting to your packaging more than your substance. But you shouldn't ignore it. Just politely redirect the conversation back to your experience. That's it: no conflict, no drama." If you're not getting call-backs, and you start thinking, 'Maybe I should change my hair, tone down my style, lose the piercings or swap the blazer,' Klimenka advises that changing your appearance won't fix a lookist, and a biased hiring system. 'Instead, you should stay on business and be sure that your main advantage is your expertise, and it's all that should matter,' she explains. "Some companies genuinely want what you bring, and that should be your main focus. Your goal isn't to be digestible but to be respected." Klimenka advises that, after every interview (or even during if possible), write down what you're asked, what feels off and any comments about your looks, age or other unprofessional responses. She insists that you have evidence to decide whether it's a pattern or a one-off chance happening. "It'll also help you decide if you have to escalate it or withdraw your application altogether from the interview process," she adds. "Bias always thrives in silence if you let it slide. Your notes become both evidence and a reassuring validation that nothing is wrong with you, especially when you are being underestimated." When you have a certain look during an online interview, it pays off in spades, but it can also pose a source of bias in the hiring process. It's true that interviewers draw conclusions from how you appear, but success isn't always about your natural-born attractiveness. If you want to send a signal that you're on top of your game and up to the task, you don't have to get Botox, a makeover or face lift. But it's important to remember that three pieces of advice never go out of style during for a job interview: regulate your anxiety, don't lie on your resume and put your best foot forward with how you look to combat the 'pretty privilege' bias that many interviewers have.
