Attractive women who attach photos to resumes are less likely to get interviews

Attractive women who attach photos to resumes are less likely to get interviews(forbes.com)

41 points by vette982 14 years ago | 49 comments

dkarl 14 years ago |

There's a complication with this study, which is that it seems really weird in the first place to attach a photo to a resume. (Maybe this is different in Israel -- anyone?) A photo is out of the ordinary and prompts people to think up an explanation for it. One possible explanation HR staff and potential interviewers might come up with is that the person relies on their looks as a career asset. That assumption is easier made about women than about men because it better fits gender stereotypes, which could account for the discrepancy without bringing the gender of the HR workers into the explanation.

(A picture of an unattractive person would not provoke suspicion that the person expects to get by on their sex appeal instead of their performance, so "plain" women and men would not be stigmatized for attaching a picture.)

Because attaching a picture prompts the recipient to wonder why, and possibly to make different assumptions about the applicant based on the explanation they come up with, I think the situation is too complicated for it to be possible to draw conclusions from the results. I don't disagree with the researchers' explanation, though. Even when we try to be fair, the idea of an attractive person getting by on their looks is more viscerally offensive, and threatening, when the person is of the same sex. Men might think it's lame and shitty if a woman relies on her looks, but if a man is rising in the office by charming and chatting up female managers, it goes beyond "lame" and becomes a personal threat. Ditto for women. Both sexes "appreciate" sex appeal as part of a charming personality when it appeals to us and stigmatize it as dangerous when it competes with us.

mmahemoff 14 years ago | |

The cited Economist article (which this article all but photocopies) says the study took place where it's supposedly the norm.

http://www.economist.com/node/21551535 "...when job hunters include photos with their curricula vitae, as is the norm in much of Europe and Asia."

That it's still the norm in Europe is news to me! Certainly not in the UK.

Of course, limiting geography means you're just as likely to be studying culture differences as the underlying topic.

dkarl 14 years ago | | |

Wow... I can't think of any reason for the practice except to facilitate discrimination on the basis of looks. Assuming it has been attacked on that basis, I wonder what the justification for continuing it is.

P.S. Apparently I trust HN too much to give me the best article about the topic. The article in The Economist would have been a much better submission.

jtbigwoo 14 years ago | |

When I was looking at jobs teaching English in Japan and Korea, many of the postings asked for photos. It was the same when my sister was applying for jobs in France (they also asked for a handwriting sample, but that's another issue.) Submitting photos along with a resume is a pretty common thing outside the U.S. and Canada in my experience.

mark_integerdsv 14 years ago | | |

Would you mind elaborating on the handwriting issue perhaps?

kstenerud 14 years ago | |

"Bradley Ruffle at Ben-Gurion University and Ze’ev Shtudiner at Ariel University Centre looked at what happens when job hunters include photos with their curricula vitae, as is the norm in much of Europe and Asia."

stcredzero 14 years ago |

Reminds me of a friend from college. She's now an astrophysicist. It seemed to me she had some trouble being taken seriously, because she was drop-dead gorgeous. Demure girl next door looks with a body that was swimsuit model material. (Even sans airbrushing)

I think some people saw her, learned what her major was, then concluded it was too good to be true. Also, it was hard for a lot of guys to think with 100% efficiency in her presence.

philh 14 years ago |

> The researchers’ unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates.

I could believe that women tend to discriminate subconsciously against unattractive women; though I don't think the reverse finding would have surprised me either. But did the study actually show that men don't discriminate against attractive women?

edit: the paper is here, it seems to be open access: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1705244

From skimming through, it looks like they don't compare whether the hirer is male or female. But

* Employment agencies prefer no-photos, but don't discriminate between attractive and plain women.

* Companies hiring for themselves don't discriminate between no-photos and plain women, but discriminate against attractive women.

Which is evidence in favour of jealousy: the people who won't work with them don't feel threatened. The paper is considerably more thorough than this though.

sliverstorm 14 years ago | |

Alternative theory:

I don't know many people who attach a photo to a resume. So if I see a photo on your resume, and you are attractive, I'm probably going to feel like you know you are attractive and are trying to win points with your attractiveness, which will cost you points in my book.

philh 14 years ago | | |

Apparently both with-photo and without-photo are common in Israel, where the study was conducted.

If that theory was true, I would expect attractive males and attractive females both to be discriminated against.

kstenerud 14 years ago | |

It's likely we're seeing some vestiges of evolutionary psychology (an attractive female as a threat to other females) that are subconsciously affecting judgment in an area that, though no threat actually exists, is recent enough in our evolutionary history that we're as yet maladapted to it. In this case, it's not so much jealousy as protecting one's turf.

In fact, I'd expect that the exact opposite occurs when the HR person is male: Prefer attractive females, and discriminate against good/successful looking males. It would be interesting to see a study that recorded in each case the gender of the HR person.

We like to think of ourselves as completely objective, but we never are.

tadfisher 14 years ago | |

This makes sense. Employment agencies are much more open to liability for discrimination from sheer volume alone, thus they train their PMs to follow the law and ignore things like gender, but they may be more likely to ignore applications with photos out of concern for said liability.

krakensden 14 years ago |

Here is a link to the actual article: http://www.economist.com/node/21551535

mahmud 14 years ago |

Please submit the original Economist article.

Forbes has this habit of taking other people's articles and slapping ads on them. They're robbing original authors of eye balls.

http://www.economist.com/node/21551535

ap22213 14 years ago |

I'm guessing that it's the same for men (when viewed by other men).

I've recently started applying around using both my linkedin account and also a text version of my resume. Since linkedin is nice enough to show me who has looked at my profile recently, I often see which companies and which person has looked. Because I'm a programmer, often it's a guy reviewing my profile.

I don't have enough data points to be conclusive, but it's looking like I get better results from my text resume (that is, the companies that don't show up as having viewed my linkedin). I was starting to wonder if the photo on my linkedin was turning people away, since the content was generally the same.

alfiejohn_ 14 years ago |

Attach photos to a resume? Is this a common thing to do in the US?

jordanb 14 years ago | |

It's never done in the United States.

It's rather common apparently in Europe though, even expected in some countries, like Germany.

On the subject of "crazy things about job-hunting in Europe," I recently learned that in France, it's expected that you hand-write your cover letter, and HR departments employ people who supposedly can figure out a person's personality and work ethic based on their handwriting.

DanBC 14 years ago | |

It used to be (depending on the job) common in the UK. Companies stopped asking for it when they realised they were leaving themselves open to discrimination claims.

I can't think why anyone would want to include a photograph of themselves on an application / CV / resumé.

Eduard 14 years ago | | |

In Germany, it's still common to provide photographs to your application. Many persons are quite successful to grasp a person's character by just looking at a photo. So depending on your character, it could be either a benefit or a disadvantage to provide a photo.

I've taken a bunch of photos for friends for use in their applications. And it's always the same: if they are shy and introverted, they do look like this in pictures. Same applies to extroverted characters.

donw 14 years ago | |

Every resume that came across my desk while I was managing in Japan had a photo attached to it.

As far as I know, it's still standard practice throughout most of Asia.