I’d have to agree with Fox’s opinion.
Being attractive, as far as securing a job, can be a valuable asset, but it’s skill, knowledge, intelligence, connections, etc that’ll move you up the chain. Similarly, attractiveness, as defined both by individual and society, is an asset in initiating and obtaining more intimate relationships, but will not secure them, not at all.
You see, when faced with an individual whom we know little about, we’ve little more to go on than their appearance and thusly it is this appearance which initiates a curiosity towards the individual, opening the pathway to a relationship; hence why attractiveness seems so important in the relationship scheme.
The same cannot be said of one’s inner self for we humans are fearful creatures. We create, both consciously and unconsciously, layers of facades and false personas to protect the inner ego. One’s true self is an elusive creature which is not as easily uncovered as even one’s “personality” is often but a farce or at best a fragment of one’s true self, and often only plays a role if there is an environment of familiarity. Only trust can open the way for one to reveal their true self, and trust is not forthcoming in our society. It is a thing which only a cultivated relationship or can yield, and so it does little to initiate relationships, save for those odd few who seem to have no fear in being themselves, but they are a true rarity.
Ah, but that is not all.
Many of us posses an infantile belief in “good” and “bad” you see. We believe that good things are innately pleasing, and bad things are not. We can see it in the tales of old where heroes are young and dashing and villains are old and monstrous, the old black-and-white model of what is good and bad. If you doubt that you posses such an internal belief, imagine that two people stand before you, one being attractive and well-dressed and the other appearing as a homeless beggar. You are informed that one of them mugged a man in an alleyway. Who would you believe, on instinct, to have committed the crime? Or perhaps you are in a position to hire someone, and the same two come in with similar qualifications. You would hire the good-looking one, would you not? Even if the disheveled one is more qualified, the same would be true for internally we make the assumption that bad-looks equal a bad person and we believe that they are likely to steal or slack off.
It is because of this that one will assume that one who possesses attractiveness must also possess traits that one finds attractive, that an attractive appearance must equal an attractive personality. It stems out of our ignorance towards that individual, and out of our wish for happiness, one which causes us to internally apply attractive personas to individuals whom we are drawn to but know little about, and so the problem deepens.
But it does ultimately come down to the fact that we cannot know a person until we enter into a relationship, but when we know so little about the person what have we to go on but their appearance? That is also why those who make an effort to open up to another have success with relationships despite not necessarily being the most attractive for they have revealed to the potential who they are and are allowing them to be able to look beyond mere appearance.
All this is not something which is likely to change, though. The media may be to blame for the application of various fashions and gratuitous makeup, but much of what we find attractive is born innately within us, relying on various proportions and symmetry. We are very aesthetic creatures, after all, so it is to be expected that we seek that which is geometrically sound. In the end, all we have done is apply various accessories to this innate sense of ours and called it beauty.
Seeing as this is the case, one must either wait until fortune comes to them or risk damage to their ego by opening up to another. The latter may lead to pain, but the former leads to worse, pain born out of emptiness and loneliness. Perhaps attractiveness is something defined well, but one’s definition of a beautiful inner self is something which greatly varies among us all. But I suppose I am wandering a bit here, so perhaps I should merely wrap things up.
In the end, attractiveness will net you a greater advantage both in the workplace and in relationships due to our internal biases regarding beauty, but it is one’s true self which will propel them to success in both realms (though, of course, there are many more factors that apply in the realm of the relationship).
Oh, and as I remember the topic of appealing people being present in ads I can say that it is the old and simple adage that, “sex sells.” One is more apt to buy something if the person with it is appealing than if the person wasn’t, not to mention remember it. Familiarity with a product produced through these memory ties can work wonders upon the masses.
As an aside, I differentiate between “inner self” and “personality” because personality also has the connotation of being just the part of the self which is evident, but not the whole self, or even the true self if the evident part is a facade, though it can refer to the inner self as well.