More Chinese job seekers turn to plastic surgery for employment

World
Europe

China's plastic surgery market is growing at an unprecedented speed. The market is developing six times quicker than the global average when it comes to the number of people undergoing such treatment.

Many young job seekers in China are turning to cosmetic surgery, with hopes that it will help them get employed.

Photoshopping resume pictures isn't enough to grab a recruitment officer's attention anymore, said Laura Fan, a young professional, when explaining why that many young job seekers are now going beyond touch-ups and make-up and going for more permanent alterations.

"Let me tell you the truth, one of my HR has told me that the capabilities of the applicant don't vary much, but if they have the same backgrounds they'd prefer the better looking one," said Fan.

CGTN photo

Meanwhile, insiders tend to attribute the phenomenon to the improvement of Chinese living conditions and income and their understanding of the industry.

Plastic surgeon Yu Haifeng told CGTN that the desire to be attractive is universal but in China the demographic seeking treatment is slightly different from the West.

"First, it's high school graduates, then college graduates looking for jobs and successful professionals who have the money for the treatment and wishes to erase the marks left behind by time, " Yu said.

In 2017, 14 million Chinese people are expected to receive some form of cosmetic surgery. The global figure is 34 million, meaning Chinese patients accounted for around 41% of the global total. In a new survey released by SoYoung, a Chinese cosmetics data platform, China is currently the world's third largest cosmetic surgery market, behind the US and Brazil.

CGTN photo

Among those seeking treatment in China, more than half are born after the year of 1990, meaning they are under the young age of 25.

This raises the question, is it ethical and socially acceptable to alter our faces for a better chance of employment when western countries are already urging job applicants to remove pictures, as well as details that may portray gender and race?

Procedures such as double eye-lid operations, face lifts, and eye widening are the most common, and are categorized as low risk surgeries, while jaw mutation, liposuction and breast implants have a much higher health risk.

Many seek short-term gains in injections but these also have the risk of infection or overdose. But some may say the pain of going under the scalpel is well worth it.

"I did double eyelid surgery. My mother urged me to do it, and after the surgery I got a new job and a boyfriend. And all my friends and my boyfriend know about this. It's really common amongst my friends, most have done the same surgery," Fan said.

It seems that job seekers have moved on from simple photo touch ups to more permanent alterations.

Has this now become a new norm? Because figures are showing that the number of people seeking such treatments is, for a matter of fact, increasing in China.