Does your face suit the role?

I think the stats sound pretty startling - but I wasn't actually surprised to find that bosses 'chose attractive job candidates when recruiting' (as reported in HR Review)

A survey of 2,266 UK employers conducted by employment law firm, Peninsula, found that 88% of respondents who conduct interviews had at some stage, given the job to the most attractive candidate. 92% said that appearance could influence their decision on who gets the job.

We ran an article a few years back on why it's not illegal to discriminate on the grounds of appearance (within reason), and I've seen it happen a lot over the years; hearing clients ask for people who are "easy on the eye".  In my formative years in recruitment two major clients spring to mind.  When hiring Field Sales Representatives for Pepsi we would often ask ourselves if the candidate was "Pepsi Pretty" (which did refer to more than looks I must admit) but the most bizarre, looking back, was a campaign for Sales Reps for L'Oreal. In the advert we asked candidate's to send in a photo of themselves so we could pre-screen them on looks.  We got plenty of normal headshots, a few "model style" photos (normally of the women) and one glamour shot of a young lady doing the Christine Keeler pose.  Somehow that one got detached from the CV and lost in the desk of one our lively young male consultants!

By the way my favourite headline for this story was "Looks could kill job opportunities for ugly mugs"  that I saw from PersonnelToday.com

Comments

[Richard Millington]

That's quite harsh in a way. But is attractiveness often a good indicator of more important characteristics like confidence? Intelligence or an ability to do the job (outside of beauty-jobs)?