Professor Sunny Lee, University College London & Dr KiKi Leutner, See Talent
Could your good looks help you land a job?
Research suggests that the answer might be “yes.” Hiring managers often perceive job candidates who are better-looking and better dressed as more competent and smarter than those who are not (Hosoda et al., 2003). Is that because hiring managers are particularly shallow? Not necessarily. Faced with complex decision-making tasks and overwhelmed by data (whether evaluating hundreds of job applicants or grading paper), individuals tend to use heuristic as a way to save time and their mental energy. In the context of hiring, hiring managers might use job candidates’ physical attractiveness as a cue for the candidates’ underlying qualities and work capabilities. In short, those managers are conflating attractiveness with competence.
Are good looks always an advantage for job applicants then? Recent research, including our own, suggests that reality is more complicated.
First, while men benefit from their great looks for landing a job, the same may not hold true for female job candidates. In our studies, attractive male candidates were perceived to be more competent than their average-looking counterparts. Yet, for women, good looks did not positively affect the perception of their work competencies. This disparity suggests an additional layer of stereotypes against women at play – specifically the “think manager-think male” stereotype – which may diminish the so-called beauty premium in professional settings for women.
Second, counterintuitively, we have found that hiring managers do not always prefer to hire those good-looking candidates they perceive as smart and competent. Why? It’s because their personal interests do not always align with those of the company they represent. Although an organisation aims to hire the most competent applicant, hiring managers may have more self-interested motives, such as hiring someone who poses the least threat to their own career prospects. Consider a highly competitive sales team where only top performers receive performance-based bonuses. Hiring managers are motivated to hire less competent candidates or those stereotyped as less competent since new hires will be their competitors. Conversely, when hiring managers expect to collaborate with a candidate, they favour good-looking male candidates as they believe this will increase the chances of collective success.
In sum, good looks could be an asset or liability in your job search processes depending on how much hiring managers are affected by their stereotypes and instrumental thoughts.
What must we do to keep hiring decisions free from human biases and selfish rationale?
If you are a hiring manager or decision maker, be mindful of your own biases. Even highly skilled managers often fall into biases, but fortunately mere awareness can help decrease the likelihood of relying excessively on stereotypes and biases.
In addition to traditional instruments to prevent biases, such as blind screening for CVs (masking gender, age, and appearance) and structured interviews, consider adopting skill-based assessments as a key part of hiring processes. This ensures that a sufficient amount of relevant and objective information guides the hiring decisions, minimising room for biases to influence outcomes.
Moreover, to align hiring managers’ interests with organisational goals for talent attraction, consider organising a search committee composed of various stakeholders. While it is important to include direct line managers or team heads in the committee, also include those who will not be in competition with new hires to ensure the fairness of the hiring process and outcomes.
Finally, seeking professional help from specialised HR agencies is a wise move. Work with them to identify any biases existing in your hiring processes through DEI audits and leverage their expertise to utilise machine learning and AI to optimise your hiring processes and outcomes.
SeeTalent specialise in diverse and inclusive recruitment and can help design, implement and audit recruitment processes to increase your chances of making decisions based on talent, not bias. Contact SeeTalent to start improving the diversity of your recruitment process.
Resources:
Dipboye, R. L., Fromkin, H. L., & Wiback, K. (1975). Relative importance of applicant sex, attractiveness, and scholastic standing in evaluation of job applicant resumes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60(1), 39–43. doi: 10.1037/h0076352
Dovidio, J. F., & Gaertner, S. L. (2000). Aversive racism and selection decisions: 1989 and 1999. Psychological Science, 11, 315–319. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00262
Hosoda, M., Romero, E. F., & Coats, G. (2003). The effects of physical attractiveness on job related outcomes: A meta-analysis of experimental studies. Personnel psychology, 56(2), 431–462. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003.tb00157.x
Lee, S.Y, Pitesa, M., Pillutla, M., & Thau, S. (2015). When beauty helps and when it hurts: An organisational context model of attractiveness discrimination in selection decisions. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 128, 15-28. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2015.02.003
