An ugly caption.

Lizzie @littlelizziev

On the January 20, Shane Atchison, the CEO of Possible, released on his Blog this week an article titled “ Labeled ‘World’s Ugliest Woman’ — Would You Hire Her? This Blog was given a front home page billing by LinkedIN, now one of the largest recruitment companies in the world.

The title made reference to Ms. Lizzie Velasquez who has a disease that only two people in the world have (including herself) where she is unable to gain any weight. In March this year Lizzie will be 25 years of age having never weighed more than 64 lbs (29 kilos). As a result of this most inflicting disease her body (and emotions) has suffered terribly.

Suffice to say the real story lies in the body of the article and an inspiring Tedx talk not to mention her book release. Such a talented, achieving and beautiful person who will be doing the hiring!

The Tedx youTube video, released 1 month ago with now over 4 million views, http://www.youtube.com/lizzitachickita captions “In a time when beauty is defined by supermodels, success is defined by wealth, and fame is defined by how many followers you have on social media, Lizzie Velasquez asks the question: How do you define yourself?”

Such a courageous and talented woman who has endured so much emotionally and physically now being displayed to the world by a CEO and “billboarded” by LinkedIN as a question caption“would you hire her?” . This heading is offensive, it is against the law in terms of appearance being a reason to employ a person and quite irrelevant to what is the real story behind her life. In fairness the body of the artilce captured that well. But we chose “hire” as the caption and in the world of 140 characters many would only see that heading. At what cost to others and to the community in general regarding standards of respect are we prepare to promote oneself?

Real corporate leadership and at the CXX level should be deeper; maybe at SeeLevel? What really matters.

Lizzie deserves an apology. What do you think?

I recommend you show support for Lizzie by following her at @littlelizziev.

Thank you for reading.

Mark Preece @markbpreece