"Are Attractive People More Employable"

My friend suggested I blog about this NY Times article,
“Are Attractive People More Employable.”

It is definitely an interesting topic, so here are my thoughts:

“Employer callbacks to attractive men are significantly higher than to men with no picture and to plain-looking men,”
As you know from last post, I am all about transparency. If I was hiring I may just be more inclined to call back the people with pictures than with no pictures at all. I feel like I can make more of a connection with people when I can put a face to a name. Do I think the people with pictures are necessarily going to do the job better? Maybe not, but I think they were smart to try to make more of a connection with the person hiring them. If they seem as qualified as someone without a picture they will probably get the call. (As long as it’s an appropriate picture that is!)

As far as calling back attractive men vs plain-looking men. I feel like the article uses tricky words here. Notice how it does not say “attractive vs. unattractive.” In that case, I don’t think I’d be more likely to call back one VS. the other. However, “plain-looking” is a different story. Did one man send a professional head shot of them while the other sent an off-center picture of themselves in a white t-shirt with stains? Yes, I may be more likely to call back the “attractive man VS. the “plain looking” man. Or is “plain looking” a simple a button up and not a suit jacket? If so, I’d have no preference to which one I called back. The article uses words that can be interpreted in too many different ways here.


“Women with no picture have significantly higher rate of callbacks than attractive or plain-looking women.”

What? This just doesn’t make sense to me! Unless you believe the next line in the article:

“We explore a number of explanations and provide evidence that female jealousy of attractive women in the workplace is a primary reason for the punishment of attractive women.”This explanation can only be true when a woman is doing the call backs…am I right? Otherwise that theory makes no sense.

The article then ends with this contradicting statement: “Previous research, however, has found that good-looking female workers receive higher raises than their plain or ugly counterparts.”Okay, so this directly counteracts what the article previously said about how attractive women get punished in the workplace due to jealousy. Or is that statement true and they get punished in non-monetary ways but rewarded monetarily because men are in charge of a majority of raises in the corporate work place? (is this even true?)

Basically, this article leaves a lot to be desired. Also, how did they come up with these statistics? Especially when people see “attractive and unattractive” in so many different ways. It reminds me of the stat on the new Match.com commercials…”One in five relationships now begin online.” What? How did they get this stat? Did they ask everyone in the world that’s in a relationship where they met? They didn’t ask me, I know that.

So, what is the truth about how someone’s appearance affects their marketability?
This reminds me of a case study I looked at in my Services Marketing class my last year of college. The case was about a man who was applying for a sales position at a company but was very out of shape. We had a long discussion in class about what role that factor should’ve played in this man’s marketability. In the end the general consensus in the class was that the man’s appearance (weight) did greatly affect his marketability. He seemed to have trouble walking up and down stairs, traveling, carrying luggage, etc. If someone just as qualified had applied for the job they should get it over him.

So, in the end, my opinion is that there are some factors of appearance that can definitely affect your marketability, even in the corporate work environment. While you may not be trying to join a professional sports team you are still trying to obtain a job that at some point or another involves your health. Just showing up for work is directly related to your health, never mind the travel you may have to do, the presentations you may have to give, etc. If it was up to me gender or a big nose wouldn’t make anyone less hirable (well, except maybe a model...) but shortness of breath and panting during an interview might!