New research has shown that attractive women would be better off not sending in a photograph along with their CV if they want to get a job.
New research, which will be presented at the Royal Economic Society’s conference, suggested that good-looking women harm their chances of getting a response from a firm by between 20 and 30% if they send a photo in to a female recruiter. The research, conducted by two Israeli academics, sent 5,000 CVs in to 2,500 job vacancies with one CV being accompanied by a photo of either a good-looking man or women or a plain-looking man or woman with the other CV not sent with a photo attached.
They found that more attractive men received a response compared to plain-looking men or those who did not send a photo whilst plain-looking women were 30% more likely than attractive women to get a response while those not sending in a picture were 22% more likely than an attractive woman to be contacted by the employer.
The researchers also spoke to the person at the companies who screened candidates and found that the overwhelming majority were also women and were young and mainly single. The researchers wrote: “Qualities more likely to be associated with a jealous response when confronted with a young, attractive competitor in the workplace”. The researchers pointed out that sending a photo with a job application was normal practice in Israel, but is not usually the case in the UK.
