One in particular wrote an article for the magazine. This classmate in years past had a free spirited image - longish, wavy hair, casual clothing. He was bold, yet had an artistic streak in him. For a while he did some photography after graduation.
Now, looking at his picture, I was shocked. This is no longer the classmate I used to know. He is now a man with serious glasses, very short hair, and is now half bald. Oh, he now has a suit on. I can understand his reason for the serious image, afterall, he is now an important, high level officer of a company (big or small I do not know). He now looked as if he wanted to be an executive. He IS an executive - why have I said "wanted to be", rather than "is" for his look?
I think this is a classic case of an unintegrative image. A person cannot hide who s/he truly is. A person may have ambition, different careers. But deep down, if the person is pretenting to be someone else, we can all see it. Such is the case with this classmate.
Just seeing the exterior - the clothing, the haircut, the glasses - all these give him an executive look. However, upon checking his facial features, his facial expression, his eyes - they do not match the exterior that he put on! Strange as it may be, he looked if he was a kid trying to be an executive. Or should I say, the executive look hasn't quite grown on him yet.
What to do? If someone like him hires me, I would definitely ask him to check deep down whether this is the career for him. This is a career that demands a certain type of executive image - suit, tie, short hair, glasses. If the company he works for belongs to him, I would check into the way they work - how they deal with clients, with employees, stakeholders. I know from experience that how a person does something, is how a person does everything. If he only deals with his company in this way, and not any other areas of his life, there is a big discrepancy - and it causes stress. From the info provided, I would help such a person create an image that lessons this discrepancy, and truly reflect him - rather than creating a wannabe.
