Washington: Myth busted that attractiveness helps candidates in the selection process!
A study has recently found that good looking people fare badly when they apply for low paid or dull jobs.
According to the study, attractive job seekers are generally thought to receive more work offers, being pretty or handsome may be a liability for less desirable jobs.
The findings have important implications for discrimination in the hiring process, the researchers claim.
Lead researcher Margaret Lee from the London Business School said that the research suggests that attractive people may be discriminated against in selection for relatively less desirable jobs.
This stands in contrast to a large body of research that concluded that attractiveness, by and large, helps candidates in the selection process.
The team carried out four experiments involving more than 750 participants, including university students and managers who make hiring decisions in the real world.
The participants were shown profiles of two potential job candidates that included photos, one attractive and one unattractive.
The participants were then asked a series of questions designed to measure their perceptions of the job candidates and, in three of the experiments, whether they would hire these candidates for a less-than-desirable job.
The less desirable jobs included a warehouse worker, housekeeper, customer service representative and the more desirable jobs included things like a manager, project director, IT internship.
In all three experiments where they were asked, participants were significantly less likely to hire the attractive candidate for the less desirable job and more likely to hire the attractive candidate for the more desirable job.
Lee stated that the participants perceived attractive individuals to feel more entitled to good outcomes than unattractive individuals, and that attractive individuals were predicted to be less satisfied with an undesirable job than an unattractive person.
‘In the selection decision for an undesirable job, decision makers were more likely to choose the unattractive individual over the attractive individual. We found this effect to occur even with hiring managers.’
They found that the participants perceived attractive individuals to feel more entitled to good outcomes than unattractive individuals, and that attractive individuals were predicted to be less satisfied with an undesirable job than an unattractive person.
The research appears in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (ANI)