Part of Changing Faces’ (CF) mission is to transform confidence and expectations in the workplace around disfigurement for jobseekers and employers alike. CF highlight that over 540,000 people in the UK have a significant disfigurement to their face. When CF asked people about their working lives, 43% said they’d decided not to apply for a job because they believed their face wouldn’t fit, 22% had been told by an interviewer that they wouldn’t get a job because of the way they looked and 46% said an interviewer seemed uncomfortable with the way they looked. CF’s new guidance, ‘Acknowledging the elephant in the room – advice for employers and jobseekers’ has been designed to help employers and jobseekers, find out what to say or do to feel confident and at ease around a condition or injury that affects a person's appearance and provide straightforward suggestions to help replace the fear of rejection, of causing offence and of being accused of discrimination.

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