The Unilever’s brand Dove has been around for 12 years, in its iconic marketing effort, in its recent campaign called “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty” which is in true sense another feel-good campaign, featuring women of different shapes and vocations talking about their looks and why the only perception of ‘their looking beautiful’ matters to the world and how it affects them.

According to the 2016 Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report, which included interviews with 10,500 women across 13 countries, 54% of women said they have low body confidence, not being assertive, indecisiveness, due to low confidence in their appearance skipping job interviews, not claiming good ideas at work, or actively choosing not to pursue career promotion etc. This ad is breaking barriers and is challenging stereotypes about looks of women.

The society gives such a lot of importance to look of people, and it is time for society to start acknowledging accomplishments of women and goodness of women. Through the concept #MyBeautyMySay Dove inspires women everywhere to take a stand against judgments that belittles their accomplishments giving way to their ‘looks’. This beautiful campaign from Edelman, Havas, Ogilvy and PHD, is for women to define their own standards of beauty. The ad had a reach to about 19.4 million girls till date with self-esteem education, Dove has always been at the forefront of helping women and girls develop a positive relationship with beauty

Women can multitask, they can bring order in disarrayed things at home, and that’s why they are called home makers. The world likes good lookers and more so the tag of ‘beauty’ bothers the women at all stages of their lives. Most women believe that they are judged on their appearance. They therefore, spend a lot of their time, efforts and money on beauty products because that becomes their key to stand out in crowd. Friends, beauty business is a big industry. The truth is, being beautiful does not come from a lipstick tube, mascara wand, or blush brush or the foundation cream, but it comes from within. Some of the elements which make women most beautiful are:

Passion: A woman who has passion can never look dull. The biggest mistake women do, is when they neglect their passion; when they neglect that part of themselves. A hobby, an interest ignites life, keeps a person going. A woman who takes the time to follow her passions, whatever they may be, understands that life is too precious. Focusing on a hobby is a way to clear the mental palate.   A woman who follows her passion simultaneously, is certainly is admirable. It is nice to watch someone pursue her dreams; it is in fact the most beautiful experience human beings can have.

Compassion: However beautifully a woman is decked up, if she is cold-hearted, and only loves herself, she is the ugliest woman. If a woman is inept and does not feel for others, is not compassionate, all her physical beauty is waste. We see those self-absorbed attractive celebrities on the front covers of the magazines, people forget them after few years. Beauty is skin deep. A woman who understands how to give and receive love is much more desirable than a woman who has none to spare.

Has a mind of her own: A woman who uses her mind stands out. When a woman for the sake of her family neglects her intellect, it’s sad. I think neglecting one’s intellect is the worst crime against self. The pursuit of knowledge and truth is not only attractive, but essential to our existence. Knowledge is empowerment. Dr. Kadambini Ganguly and Dr. Anandi Gopal Joshi were the first Indian female physicians, trained in Western Medicine. They looked very charming because of their accomplishments.  Their ability to rise above circumstances and to realize their potentials made them look splendid.

Joyful spirit: Women should never lose their joyful spirit. A laughing, joyful woman is welcome everywhere. No one likes to sit in company of sulking person. Disappointments are part and parcel of life. But there is so much more which need not be overlooked. The point is, a sense of adventure and appreciation for all that life has to offer is more attractive. Spontaneity adds to the facevalue; taking the child for a walk, or singing a favorite song loudly, watching a comedy serial or cooking a favorite dish – so much can be done to add the extra tinge to life.

Resilience: A woman with resilience is loved by all. The world admires fighters. I think nothing is more beautiful than a woman who refuses to give up. Tenacity, whether in one’s career, marriage, or physical health, is highly inspiring. Resilience is about believing that life can never defeat unless one allows herself to become defeated. Accepting the worst or the best in equal stride is so uplifting. The movie ‘Dangal’gives the hair raising experience in the movie halls to the viewers for the resilience shown by Geeta and Babita (the Phogat sisters).  The film makes the audience aware of the struggles and achievements of the Phogat sisters. Its inspiring story for all women.

Confidence: There is thin line between bragging and confidence. The face tells it all. Confident woman stand out in crowd. Confidence is about a woman looking poised for her own assurance about her knowledge, her strategies, and her style of execution, her looks, and the way she speaks, stands and talks.   A confident woman doesn’t need other people’s support to help her feel the pride in herself. Confident women are more appealing than a women who continually seeks others’ approval.

Liveliness: I think energetic women look most beautiful, Liveliness sets them apart from others.  An energetic woman has a matchless vitality for life is and she should be idolized for it. When a woman follows her passion, shows compassion, pursues her intellect, keeps a sense of adventure, refuses to give up, and believes herself to be worthy, she is admired and followed ubiquitously.

As women, our sense of confidence derives typically from our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves and our life experiences.  When we look in the mirror, our inner beliefs color how we view our outer look. The more authentically confident we feel inside, the more favorably we see ourselves outside. Beauty lies within.

I think it is rare to find a person without a hobby. Most people have a hobby and do something interesting in their free time. Some people have common hobbies while some have unusual hobbies; your hobby either stirs up curiosity and delight in some people while many may have aversion for it. And when some people draw a long face and say that they have no hobby, they appear boring and drag. Your hobby provides a glimpse into your personality. It speaks a lot about your character, it allows you to paint a picture of yourself.  Progressive organizations all over world use hobby as key while hiring personnel as they look at the qualities required to perceive a hobby by a person.

For example, if you are a chess player, you might be good at making strategies. If you like fishing, you might be patient because fishing requires lot of patience. If you like playing Scrabble or doing crossword puzzles, you probably have a broad vocabulary and analytics – perhaps some untapped writing skills. If your love gardening, it shows your potential for creativity and endurance. The key is that each hobby shows some skillset a person has deep down in him/her. In a job interview, the moment interviewer asks about your hobby, the atmosphere eases and you feel little becomes hassle-free while it gives an opportunities for the employer to see your unwritten dispositions.  If you believe that your personality is an asset, then you have to get creative.  The employer also uses your hobby to get a broader perspective about you. Your life outside work may tell a lot about you. If you haven’t impressed the interviewer, here is a chance to impress him.

So, should you include your hobbies on your resume?  Well, there are strong arguments in favor of it and against it. While some people feel that hobbies are very personal and they should not be included in CV, others see is as a way to present their creative side as the best fit for the post in an organization.  Job seekers sometimes make the mistake of including hobbies that reveal too much about their dogmatic or religious beliefs that may cause the employer to have concerns about their regime or character.  However, if you never lose sight of the fact that you are trying to make the employer want to hire you, then it shouldn’t be difficult to stay on track.  There are some ways that your hobbies can make you stand out above your competitors. I think presentation matters.

Hobbies reveal your passions.  It is often said that you can tell a lot about a person by what they do in their spare time. Employers may look to find out your or to get a sense of your values.  Are you passionate about a particular cause?  Are you aware of surroundings? Are you concerned about what is going on in world around you?  Do you use your spare time to network, or instead you just like to relax? What are you, what kind of a person are your, your ethos, your interests and everything you are made of is of a great concern to the employer.

Your hobbies determine your skills.  You acquire skills from everything you do.  If you think back, you may find that you gained some of your most important skills through your hobbies. I know of this young lady who used go as an instructor in a summer camp without fail each summer, kids liked her and loved to be in her company, she was hired by a FMCG in their Human Resource Department where she rose to level of HR Director. Her hobby made her people’s leader. I think we need to review our target job and try to identify the key skills and personality traits which hobbies help us to build. If you have such hobbies which befit your job profile, then it is worth putting them on your resume.

Employers like to hire candidates who are involved in their community.  Employees who are loners and not social tend to singularly focus on their jobs, this is not healthy and may not work for the employee in networking with others. If you demonstrate through your hobbies that you are a go-getter and a friendly person, you may find that it makes your resume even stronger. Never forget that people are at the heart of the hiring process.  In addition to the required skills and experience, the employer is trying to find the right fit for a job profile.  There is a lot more to you than your professional skills.  If you allow the employer to get to know you, they will surely connect with you and decide that it’s you that they want on their team.

Yes, besides a job interview, if you have no hobby it is a sad thing. In fact it’s an alarming symptom. Probably, you just do not know how to organize your time and energy. Psychologists persistently recommend people to do some creative work besides work and house chores. Hobbies fill up our lives with new meaning and develop our creative abilities. A hobby should not distract you from your main profession or resolution of life. Don’t look at it as time killer. After all, a hobby helps you to grow in life, to broaden your mind and train your intellect.

It is extremely important to invest your time, efforts, money, and energies in the specialization of your choice. Many of us are good at many subjects. And, many of us try to get adjusted in an area of specialization and try to ‘fit’ into it all through our professional lives. Specialization is a specific area in which you can make a career. When you chose a profession which gratifies your passion, you are the most fortunate person on earth. And, therefore, it is a wise decision to invest in a career of choice.  When we get career in which we find our passion our existence becomes very fascinating.

As Confucius said, “choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It’s great advice, but it’s not always that simple. It is very difficult to figure out what we love, and how to change that liking into a career. There are many elements one needs to weigh before entering a job. A friend of mine who is very knowledgeable in the area of finance; he has loads of information in the stock market, banking, FDI, accounting, behavioral finance so on and forth. But he does not like to talk and does not like elucidation of concepts. Now this gentleman is a lecturer in a college. Because he does not like talking too much and explaining things in details, he obviously does not make a good teacher. Very few students attend his lectures.

A famous physician practices in heart of the city. He is famous for his diagnosis and prognosis. The problem with this physician is – he gets hyper when his patients ask him more than two questions. He feels his patients should listen to him and obey his instructions. He does not listen much to what patients speak; each patient has some or the other question regarding diet, after effects of medicines, life style, sleep etc. He does not like to listen. He breezes into the exam room with his own agenda and hardly has the time to find out what the patient expects. This common complaint his patients have. Therefore, he is considered as a conceited man.

Matching up our personality with a suitable role is extremely vital to our career. In fact it can become a career challenge. Our personality has so many facets; most of the times we fail to break it down into separate traits. And, even if we are aware of our characteristics, it’s important to know which jobs they’re suited for. I mean, how many people know which career is appropriate for which personality type. Often we have knowledge of one or two careers.

The present trend of education in universities is that students study degrees that sound highly, and at times narrowly vocational. Nevertheless, the trend of students opting for traditional subjects, such as History, English Literature and the Natural Sciences, Commerce is not wiped out completely. Many universities still regard themselves as seats of pure learning. I frequently think is it still sensible and desirable to study for love of a subject alone? On a second thought, a person can get trained up in a job rest of his life, whereas the time you spend in university is the only time in your life when you can study purely because you enjoy it.

Look at the recent changes in the global job market people do not shy away from changing and hopping into new jobs. The old traditional philosophy of sticking and retiring from one job is disappeared. In today’s job market very few people experience the stability of working for only one or two employers throughout their careers. In fact, most workers entering their first job today will change career paths at least seven to ten times before they reach retirement age.
With workers hopping from one job to other, more frequently very few companies can afford to invest heavily in into employee training and development. Therefore, more and more employers prefer job seekers to develop their own skills before joining a company. As a result, the demand for workers with college degrees has skyrocketed over the past few decades. I want to bring the point of loving your work, loving your career, doing what you love to do. Then job hopping is out of question.

Therefore, one needs to invest a little time and energy before taking decisions about career.

1. Make a list of your interests.
2. Make an honest list of your personal characteristics and your talents.
3. At the same time, make a list of your limitations and things which bore you to death.
4. Carry out some research about what kind of life style each of your interests might bring if it would turn to a job. Gather details in order to build up a realistic image of those professions.
5. Talk to people who have been in those professions for years. Gather the present trends in those particular professions.
6. Now take some more time and try to remember what you loved as a child. Often, our truest passions emerge in childhood. We stifle our childhood passion as we grow older by real life pressures. So think about what you loved in your childhood, what made you happy – was it mathematics, numbers, puzzle solving, reading stories, making collage, drawing, singing, scientific research, navigation, being close to nature…..what was that made you happy. Try to remember. Getting back in touch with those instincts is an important step in finding your passion.
7. Pease remove the materialistic element from your passion. Please don’t let the financial objective spoil your choice. While we all know money can’t be ignored, but don’t allow money dictate your choices. Listen to what your heart is saying.
8. Discuss about your thought process with your best friends who know you well. Sometimes you might not be able to make up our mind. You might misjudge your own decisions. Ask the people who know you personally, they might tell you when you seem the happiest and what you do most enthusiastically. Their answers might surprise you. Listen to your friends.
9. While choosing your educational programs check which subjects scare you to death, which ones do you find boring, whether you would love wasting your time studying them, Think, think and then decide on the choice.
10. Identify your professional hero. We all like one of the professions; we imagine being in it and hero-worship the topper in it. Whom would you most want to emulate? Reach out to him/her to learn more about how that person got to where he is.
11. In short, think of what you enjoy the most. Focus on things that you both enjoy and do well. It could be cooking, gardening, teaching, singing in opera, acting in drama, handicraft, painting …………… it could be from the funniest sounding thing to very serious sounding topic such as aeronautics or medicines. Don’t bother what others would think of you. Follow your heart.
12. Make a list of the top three or four profession which fascinate you; narrow the list to the top one thing. Keep it handy, review it often, and use it as your jumping-off point when you’re plotting your career move.

The movie ‘3 idiots’ gives the same message: chose a career which allows working with passion, believe in yourself, chase excellence and success will follow you automatically, and most important sometimes be idiotic it helps you to bring in the best in you.