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Pole and looking for work
Hi everyone,
At the moment I’m looking for a new job but I’m a bit unsure how to deal with the pole issue at the moment, and wondered if anyone has any advice or experience with this.
Common sense and lots of job seeker advice tells you to avoid anything sexy, political or religious in how you present yourself when looking for a job. A lot of people class pole as sexy, although for me (and many others) its a fun workout, a way of expressing myself and, from the bruises and general aches, far from sexy!
Its also well known that many recruiters check out your online presence. This is going to be particularly relevant to the kind of job I’m looking for. I have googled myself and most of it is pole related – no surprises there since I love doing pole and am really involved in it. Whilst I can ‘clean up’ my profiles of some of it, some of it is historical so I don’t think I can get rid of that. To be honest, I don’t really feel like I should have to as I’m not ashamed of it and it demonstrates a lot of soft skills. However, I don’t think recruiters will have the same view and maybe to get a job I have to play the game.
So, what do I do? I’m pretty sure whatever I do to try and hide it, it won’t be enough. My instincts are saying I should just own it and do something to address it head on before recruiters can make their own assumptions. But I could be completely wrong and putting myself at a disadvantage from the off. Any thoughts?
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4 Replies
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I would tell your future/possible employers that you practice Aerial Fitness. When they ask what you mean, inform them that you've practiced Lyra and aerial silks (even if you haven't) and "other vertical gymnastics". Normally when they say, "what do you mean Aerial Fitness" and you explain lyra and silks ("You know, the stuff they do in Cirque De Soleil?") they're normally too enamored by the idea of that to think anything of pole dancing. 🙂 Hope this helps
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I definitely added in my interviews that I did Aerial Fitness… when pushed further I would say "Ya know, aerial silks, hoop, pole, that sort of thing. It's basically a gymnastic dance."
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It depends on the job you are looking at getting. For the most part, I've had little problem the fes times I've dipped my toes back into the world of real jobs in regards to pole. Then again, I've always been in the entertainment field so even when I apply for marketing positions they are generally for social networking positions and things like that where it doesn't matter that much.
Last year when I was job hunting I changed my real profile around on FB and limited what could be seen, made all public photos standard pics – one of my cat, one of me and my boyfriend – cropped just our heads. Play with your social networking site settings – they won't be able to see much if they can find you.
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I got questioned about pole in work recently. I played the hoop and silks card too! Fortunately I’m not too public as a dancer but I will definitely be using a stage name if I ever am.
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