Photo: Tooga/The Image Bank/Getty
Since reading that women who wear makeup are more likely to get ahead at work, we've been wondering: What else can we do to get a leg up at the office? Makeup might make you appear more competent and trustworthy, according to this new study, but it's going to take a little more than well-handled eyeliner to impress your boss.
Try on a new look in the Makeover Studio
Forget being a good girl. Go gutsy instead
When Kate White, Editor in Chief of Cosmopolitan, decided to pen a non-fiction book for women trying to get ahead at work, she focused on a single, substantial principle. Say goodbye to the good girl and embrace your brave, ambitious, ballsy side. "If you hope to be a star in your company and a standout in your field," White writes, "you must, at times, make your own set of rules for what you're doing. You must listen to what they tell you to do and then you must twist it, toss it, or turn it upside down so that the result is brilliantly bold and different."
Speak Up
In 2008, The Washington Post found that 85% of women are less likely to ask for a promotion than men. In addition, studies have repeatedly found that only a fraction of women attempt to negotiate their starting salary, while the practice is not uncommon for men. Ask for the things you feel you are entitled to at work, because if you don't, no one will freely give them to you.
Mariko Chang, a Stanford-educated sociologist and author, told CNN that women would be wise to investigate the average salary for their job at similar companies in the same area, and use this information to negotiate better pay or see the gender-biased red flags when they arise.
How to look instantly more polished
Stop asking Why, and start asking Why Not?
Bonnie Fuller, legendary publisher on top of being a wife and mother, encouraged all women to stop asking why and start asking why not in her best selling book, The Joys of Much Too Much. The woman who has it all recounted a lunch she had with Oscar-winning producer David Brown. What they discovered was that both of them had succeeded in different industries by using the same philosophy: "Under no circumstances, face the facts."
Some of Brown's greatest success had been achieved when he produced Jaws, a movie that "had they realized they had to create a mechanical shark to make the story work onscreen, they never would have gone near the project. Ignorant, they went forward, and even hired a then-unknown, twenty-nine-year-old director named Steven Spielberg. The rest is movie box office history."
If you can't get up, get out.
If you're career has stalled, "Get out. Start over," says Suzy Welch, businesswoman and co-author of Winning in O, The Oprah Magazine. Noting that a fresh start can be tough, Welch continued, "recognize your career stall, for whatever reason it is happening, and take action. Once you plant your feet in new territory, with time you'll fly high again."
10 comments