The beauty comes from the inside, right? Well, maybe it does but attractive men have a far greater chance to get the job than plain-looking ones, while for women the situation is quite opposite. Strange as it may seem, but it's true.
Article continues below
The research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, involved sending 5,312 resumes in pairs to 2,656 advertised job openings in Israel. In each pair, one resume was without a picture while the second, otherwise almost identical CV, contained a picture of either an attractive male/female or a plain-looking male/female. The dependent measure was whether the employer e-mails or calls back the candidate for an interview. Overall, the response rate was 14.5 percent.
Unlike Anglo-Saxon countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K, it isn't taboo in Israel to embed a headshot of oneself in the top corner of one's job resume. Rather, the choice to include a photograph on one's job resume is left to the candidate with the result that some do, while others don't. This fact makes Israel an opportune location to explore the effect of a picture and its attractiveness, or lack thereof, on the likelihood of being invited for a job interview.
The resumes of "attractive" males received a 19.9 percent response rate, nearly 50 percent higher than the 13.7 percent response rate for "plain" males and more than twice the 9.2 percent response rate of no-picture males. It follows that an attractive male needs to send on average five resumes in order to obtain one response, whereas a plain-looking male needs to send 11 resumes for a single response.
However, among women, the BGU study indicates that, contrary to popular belief, "attractive" women are called back for a position LESS often than "plain women", as well as women who had no picture on their resume. Among female candidates, no-picture females have the highest response rate, 22 percent higher than plain females and 30 percent higher than attractive females.
Those findings on penalization of attractive women contradict current psychology and organizational behaviour literature on beauty that associate attractiveness, male and female alike, with almost every conceivable positive trait and disposition. As a result, attractive and plain women alike are better off omitting their photograph from a resume since it decreases their chances of a callback by 20 to 30 percent.
The number of attractive women that were subjected to discrimination varied on who was hiring them, the research shows. When employment agencies received resumes for positions, attractive female candidates were no worse off than plain candidates and penalized only modestly compared to no-picture females. ■