Beauty Revisited: The impact of attractiveness, ability, and personality in the assessment of employment suitability

Abstract

This study examined the relative weight that hiring managers place on applicants' attractiveness, general mental ability (GMA), and the Big Five personality dimensions in assessing employment suitability for high and low customer contact positions. A sample of 130 managers from 43 hotel properties in the United States and Canada evaluated applicant profiles that varied on these dimensions. The policy capturing results demonstrated that attractiveness does impact employment suitability ratings across positions. However, attractiveness is valued less than GMA and conscientiousness. The attractiveness weight was greater in the evaluation of high customer contact positions, suggesting that attractiveness may be perceived as more job-relevant for positions where employees interact extensively with people outside the organization. These findings are discussed along with implications for practice and future research attention.

Social Media in Employee-Selection-Related Decisions

“…One study on hiring recommendations (Tews, Stafford, & Zhu, 2009) included information on general mental ability, the five-factor personality variables, and facial photographs. The authors found that attractiveness influenced hiring decisions over and above ability and conscientiousness, particularly for high customer contact jobs (see also Freng & Webber, 2009).…”

Brains versus beauty in the knowledge economy

“…However, most of these investigations have analysed beauty as a motivation for remuneration (Andreoni & Petrie, 2008;Benzeval, Green & Macintyre, 2013;French, 2002;Hamermesh & Biddle, 1993;Mobius & Rosenblat, 2006;Robins, Homer & French, 2011;Tews, Stafford & Zhu, 2009). This research would focus on hiring decisions.…”

“…Managers may use physical attractiveness to make generalised inferences about a candidate regarding employment suitability as it is an easily identifiable characteristic (Tews et al, 2009). In a related study, 50% of employers who had recently hired candidates to fill a position answered that physical appearance was very important (11%) or somewhat important (39%) (Holzer, 1993).…”

“…Rynes and Bourdreau (1986) have suggested that very little time is spent on training interviewers on how to evaluate applicants' suitability and this may lead to bias that is based on physical appearance or the 'what is beautiful is good' stereotype (Patzer, 1983). Tews et al (2009) found that when positive attributes are ascribed to the physically attractive, this may lead to a positive effect on hiring decisions, but when details of the applicants' general mental ability (GMA) and personality were recorded, the results demonstrated that attractiveness was valued less than both of these attributes. This finding concluded that managers do try to make hiring decisions based on employee ability to maximise job performance.…”

Pretest of images for the beauty dimension

“…The impact of physical attractiveness has also been studied in other areas of research, such as the impact of beauty in the labor-market (e.g., Hamermesh & Biddle, 1993) or employment suitability (e.g., Tews, Stafford, & Zhu, 2009).…”