Face Value

As the days go by, the world is becoming more and more tech-savvy. At least, that's the term of choice nowadays, instead of admitting that we're all a bit mad. Yesterday we were drooling over the Blackberry and the iPhone, but today we are designing Blackberry's for kids; yes, a colourful handheld 'PDA style' toy for toddlers that thankfully doesn't connect to the internet. As if the youth of today needed any additional training in the art of text messaging - they basically shoot out of the womb with a wireless headset in their ear, and while in the past the doctor's were greeted by the sound of a baby crying they shouldn't be surprised if they now deliver a baby that's beeping. Exaggeration? Read this. This girl sent 14000 text messages in a month. I rest my case.


In fact, we've come to a place where little or no interaction is required for even the most mundane tasks. Even the age old customs of buying the groceries has now been replaced by the 'internet fridge', which basically allows us to sit in the kitchen and do absolutely nothing while men deliver random food items to your door without you asking for it. If only you didn't have to walk all the way to to the door to sign for it. Eureka!


With this shift that life has taken towards everything cordless, wireless, lossless and pointless, it's not uncommon to find ourselves with a sort of split personality, the online one which everyone sees and adores, and the real one which is a just a tad, well, blah. Sabby wrote an interesting post about blogging and anonymity, and I think it's relevant here.


But what I really want to point out is the paramount importance of the DP, also known as your Display Picture. Yes, it seems that while most of our interactions have now taken to the online format, there are still some people that like to see what you actually look like. I'm sure the tech nerds of all those little internet chat forums etc are still seething against this little detail, but thanks to the magic of photoshop and other such devices, hope is not lost.


See, appearances mean everything, as I wrote earlier. While it's true that most jobs still require a personal interview, the fact that you even got to that stage is at least partly due to that smart looking photograph on your resume. Yes, the one with the slight inclination, the soft toning, the twinkling eyes and in the case of the women (and some men unfortunately) the wind effect blowing your hair into formations that would make Pocahontas jealous. Who wouldn't want that kind of person working for them?


The same can be said for Facebook and other such social networking sites. Your profile pic is what makes or breaks you, especially if you're the type of person looking to meet people online. Don't have a good pic of yourself? No worries - a little sepia effect here, a little cropping there, a little blur effect around there, and voila! You're a movie star. It's also not so common knowledge that companies search for potential candidates names over these sites. So if you send in a crystal clear super glossy high class resume, with bells on, you probably might lose the job if they type your name in google and come up with that profile picture of you smoking a joint at the beach.


Which is why my profile picture is a carefully engineered picture of me just after Christmas service, with the right amount of shading and a slight fading out of the background. It's terribly fake, and my certain someone thought that I had some sort of a cloud behind my head (it was a white bag that had been blurred out), but hey - I want to get hired.


And even if my resume stinks, at least I have a pretty face!