Look sharp: Appearance counts

MAT-SU -- Books are judged by their covers, houses are assessed by their curb appeal and people are initially appraised on how they choose to dress and act.

First impressions count. In a perfect world, this is not fair or right. What's inside should count a great deal more. And usually it does, but not right away. In the meantime, there can be many lost opportunities.

There are many decisions about our appearance that have already been made for us. Gender, skin color and height, for example, are factors that are largely out of our control. But we can control how we portray ourselves to the outer world.

The idea is to start at a place that is most visible and allows for immediately recognized results. Wardrobe, grooming, and nonverbal communication are aspects that are apparent on the outside -- to the outside world.

Combined, these factors can allow us to present ourselves as competent, knowledgeable, elegant, kind, powerful or anything else we choose to communicate.

We have approximately 30 seconds. This has been determined as the average length of time it takes for someone meeting you to form a list of impressions about your character and abilities.

The list of impressions can include: competence, level of success, personality, level of sophistication, trustworthiness, sense of humor, social heritage, education.

In 30 seconds, people form all those different impressions based almost entirely on what they see -- clothes, hairstyle, posture, smile and the rest of your nonverbal communications. And 30 seconds doesn't give you a lot of time to present a complete r/sum/. It doesn't give you time to explain all your training and abilities.

Appearances do count. These quick impressions can be lasting ones. If your initial visual message is positive, the person you've just met will tend to assume other aspects about you are equally positive. But unfortunately, if your first impression is negative, that new customer, client, co-worker or prospective employer may not spend the time and effort to discover the talented person inside.

In the business world, appearance can make or break a deal. For example, a college career planning and placement center surveyed 150 employers; they discovered that the number-one reason for rejecting an applicant after the first interview was poor personal appearance. Interestingly, those employers ranked poor appearance even more significant than being a "hostile, overbearing know-it-all" (reason No. 9) or "late for the interview without good reason" (reason No. 28).

Appearances also count in ongoing interactions. Noted on BusinessTown.com, sociologist Albert Mehrabian found that in a face-to-face encounter, 7 percent of a verbal message comes from the words used; 38 percent comes from the vocal tone, pacing, and inflection and 55 percent of the message is transmitted by the speaker's appearance and body language.

So, what's the bottom line? Like it or not, appearances count and as the speed of the business world accelerates, the importance of a positive first impression does as well.