Hiring preferences: attractive women have the edge

I saw this reported on Dateline or one of those type shows years ago.

But according to the report I saw attractive people in general, regardless of gender, have an edge.

In females, those with slender body types and feminine hairstyle and make-up had a better chance of being hired then plain looking not so attractive women.

In men it was tall and strong jaw line that got the job.

If I remember correctly they were applying for white collar jobs such as managers, banking, sales, etc.

They sent in two people of the same gender with similar qualifications to apply for the job. They did this for several job interviews in several cities. The attractive people received way more call-backs then not so attractive people. In some examples, they even lowered the qualifications of the attractive person, and they still got called back.

They also showed how your attractiveness level influenced people's willingness to help you as well as willingness to trust you. Which may also play into why attractive people get more job offers.

So, I believe the "attractiveness bias" goes for both genders, and I think both genders are equally at fault. A boss may hire an attractive person to work in sales or customer service or at the "frontline" of the business but it is because he or she knows the public will respond to this.

I'll never forget when my dad hired a smokin hot secretary (she replaced my mom). He could not believe all the personal service he started getting from all the supply' reps calling with their deals (which she was in charge of purchasing). In fact instead of calling, they started coming in personally. He couldn't believe the change. (sorry mom, LOL)

The facts are in, behaving ignorantly and stupidly makes you ugly. :-)

This study may OR may not be consistent with what you say Kris. It appears the author contradicts herself but it may be that her writting is convoluted.

"In every other kind of job, attractive women were preferred. This wasn't the case with men which shows that there is still a double standard when it comes to gender."

"While the researchers found good-looking women were ruled out for certain jobs, they found that attractive men did not face similar discrimination and were always at an advantage."

The only way the second quote could be consistent with the first is if the double standard she refers to is that only attractive men are always at an advantage while attractive women are only at an advantage most of the time... (odd point to make). Like matt, I initially thought the double standard she was reffering to was that only women were shown differential treatment based on looks.

The author also makes unfounded or very missleading claims. She says that attractive men always have an advantage (over the avg. person). The study cannot he saying that because it could not test all job types. She might have meant that the attractive men were always advantaged in each of the study's tests, but that really has a different meaning from what she said.

All in all I think the article is poorly written and that the author lacks an understanding of both logic and the limits of the study.

Personally I think there would be many jobs where attractive female applicants are at a huge advantage to attractive male applicants (there's also the female only jobs...). I also think that overall attractive women get more advantages than attractive men in the workplace, (but that's hard to measure).

I wish I could remember the study but I read before that female bosses were more judgmental of looks then male bosses. And the the female bosses were especially critical of men's looks. The attractive men got advantages while the unattractive men got treated worse than unattractive women. Basically they were being bullies.