Physical attractiveness and employment
Physical attractiveness and beauty have become an asset and talent when it comes to being employed. Like any other jobs, careers like modeling use these assets because it's mostly required for success. Other careers that don't require beauty including being a doctor and engineering as expected requires one's profession. However, there are different perspectives concerning how a leader should look like (Marks & Huzzards, 2010). For instance, most employers believe that a good leader should be good looking while having different cultures and meanings. There are also additional aspects like the body language and voice that are considered to be important in different career paths. However, does beauty and attractiveness land, someone, a job? This essay will provide evidence why physical good looking people get hire chances of being employed.
Bias towards good-looking people
With that said, there several studies that demonstrate the bias towards good-looking people because it starts from birth. Let's face it; everybody adores everyone gives a good looking baby a lot of care. For some time now, almost everyone who knows they are good-looking believes they will land themselves a dream job. It is, therefore, easier when everyone accepts and becomes aware of this fact to compensate for the debate. However, it is also important to note that good looks do not guarantee someone's success. Therefore while good looks are seen as talents in an individual, he or she must also prove their success through hard work and skills (Marks & Huzzards, 2010). This raises a question: do looks matter when someone is searching for a job?
Studies on the impact of looks on job interviews
According to a study done by Boeri and Peri (2015), they sent more than five thousand resumes to approximately three thousand employers who had already advertised. Two identical resumes were sent to the employers including the photos of the applicants. All photographs in the resumes had different presentations; some had attractive women or men, while others showed plain looks of the man or woman. The authors also noted that not all countries require photos in the resumes. The photographs that were chosen from over 300 universities were panel rated by four women and men in term of attractiveness (Boeri & Peri, 2015). The judges eliminated the racial bias be reselecting the photos again and chose the ones that had the ambiguous ethnic background. The overall results showed that employers invited 14.5 percent where three-quarter of male candidates that were attractive were invited for interviews. Only 9.2 percent that did not attach their photos were called for interviews (Boeri & Peri, 2015).
According to the results, five out of all attractive men that applied with a photo, one was invited to an interview. With beautiful women, those who made their application with photos had 16.6% call back rate while the ones that applied with a plain picture had 13.6 percent call back rate (Sumi & Morita, 2017). Those that did not attach any photo had only 12.8 percent chances of being invited for an interview. After the study, it is evident that attractive people usually get higher chances of landing them a job. Most companies while doing their selection screen the candidates based on their qualifications bur more profound how they look especially if the firm was customer based (Sumi & Morita, 2017).
Importance of attractiveness in hospitality jobs
Hospitality jobs especially hotels also prefer good-looking employees because they believed it attracts their customers. For instance, in the service team, it is thought that beautiful girls give male customers a memorable experience that usually brings them back not only because of the excellent service offered but for the beautiful smile they saw (Chang & Saw, 2018). Attractive male waiters are also believed to mesmerize the female customers because of their physic, speed, and smiles. Therefore, most hotel employers prefer to hire good-looking workers even if they are not that experienced because they end up training them. Based on this, employers have different reactions when they receive resumes that have photos attached. When a male picture was included, employers found the applicant being more presentable and confident (Chang & Saw, 2018).
Employment selection based on physical appearance
Most employers tend to have discrepancies when it comes to employment selection because most of them end up discriminating against the ones who were more productive to the good looking for senior posts. From the previous study, it is evident that attractiveness entrusts the applicant with more positive traits of getting a job. When there is competition for specific positions where the applicants are equally able, employers tend to invoke a person's physical appearance as a source of additional information (Chang & Saw, 2018).
Conclusion
Beauty, as elaborated in the essay, serves as a tiebreaker because bosses have to choose between qualifications and looks when recruiting. In sharp contrast, most companies use beauty as an option to glare the exceptions of the good looking and end up punishing both the no picture and plain candidates. Based on Boeri & Peri study, it was evident that most employers went for good-looking people despite the fact that the resumes were categorically mixed with the ambiguous ethnic background candidates. The paper has therefore supported the thesis by showing why attractiveness creates greater chances for one to be employed.
References
Boeri, T., & Peri, G. (2015). Unexplored Dimensions of Discrimination, 144-154.
Chiang, C., & Saw, Y. (2018). Do good looks matter when applying for jobs in the hospitality industry? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 71, 33-40. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2017.12.001
Marks, A., & Huzzard, T. (2010). Creativity and workplace attractiveness in professional employment. Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting, 12(3), 225-239. doi: 10.1108/14013380810919868
Sumi, K., & Morita, K. (2017). Spoken Dialogue Agent System for Writing Resumes while Practicing Job Interviews. Theory and Practice of Computation, 149-157. doi: 10.1142/9789813202818_0011
