In a new study from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel, two economics researchers prove that a double standard exists between good looks as a positive factor in men and women.
The research involved sending 5,312 resumes in pairs to 2,656 advertised job openings in Israel.
In each pair, one resume contained a picture of the applicant -- either an attractive male or female or a plain-looking male or female -- and the other resume, which was almost identical, had no picture.
Yes, pictures.
"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," explains BGU economics researcher and lecturer Dr. Bradley Ruffle.
But it's not required. So some applicants choose to include a photo and some 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," said Ruffle.
The dependent measure for the study was whether the employer e-mails or calls the candidate for an interview. Overall, the response rate was 14.5 percent.
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 CSV [resumes] in order to obtain one response, whereas a plain-looking male needs to send 11 for a single response," explains Ze'ev Shtudiner, co-researcher and Ph.D. candidate.
However, among women, the BGU study indicates that, contrary to popular belief, attractive women fare worse than their plain or no-picture counterparts.
Female candidates with no picture had the highest rate of follow-up calls -- 22 percent more than the plain women and 30 percent more than the attractive women.
"Our findings on penalization of attractive women contradict current psychology and organizational behavior literature on beauty that associate attractiveness, male and female alike, with almost every conceivable positive trait and disposition," said the study authors.
The researchers decided to dig a little deeper and found the number of attractive women that were subjected to discrimination varied on who was hiring them.
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.
However, when the corporation at which the candidate might work recruited directly, attractive females received a response rate of about half that of plain and no-picture women.
The researchers concluded this could be due to the high number of women in human resources staffing positions.
To verify this stereotype, the researchers conducted a post-experiment survey in which they spoke with the person at the company who screens candidates.
That person was female in 24 of the 25 (96 percent) of the companies they interviewed.
Moreover, these woman were young (ranging in age from 23 to 34 with an average age of 29) and typically single (67 percent) -- qualities more likely to be associated with a jealous response when confronted with a young, attractive competitor in the workplace.
"Indeed, the evidence points to female jealousy of attractive women in the workplace as a primary reason for their penalization in recruitment," said Ruffle.
