The Ugly Truth
I found a really fascinating blog post by Eve Tahmincioglu (hers has become a favorite of mine this semester) about a website called BeautifulJobSeekers.com. If you couldn’t guess from the name, BeautifulJobSeekers.com is a site that is specifically catered to helping beautiful people find jobs.
Now, instinctively, I thought this was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard of. But I went on to read statistics that suggest 90% of people who have hired people in the past have given jobs to those individuals they consider to be attractive. I’m not advocating this site, far from it, but given those statistics it’s somewhat easier to imagine why someone would think this site is a good idea.
Will it succed? Probably not. As Eve says, who wants to tell people they hired someone from a website called BeautifulJobSeekers.com? But I genuinely thought that our culture was making strides away from superficiality…apparently now it’s permeated even the workplace. If nothing else, it’s enlightening.
jhren
patrickfoley1
rosegregory
4417maherd
matthewzuknik
jfulce
This is a really bizare article. I’ve heard stats, before reading this article, about how attractive people are more likely to get jobs, but I had no idea it was this extreme. It sounds ridiculous, but if you put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes, hiring someone who is more attractive than someone else is an easy out. I’m not condoning this at all, but it is easier to do if the person you’re hiring isn’t rough on the eyes.
I agree that this is a bizarre phenomenon. However, in several of my Psychology courses, we’ve learned about the human tendency to favor people who are attractive. Symmetry is easier for the brain to process; therefore, people tend to prefer faces which are symmetrical. Because of the whole symmetry thing, symmetrical faces are also considered more attractive. Since I’m a psych nerd, I think all of this is extremely interesting, and it’s pretty crazy to think about how many areas of everyday life are affected by these kinds of c0ncepts.
This is a crazy concept and as Tahmincioglu states the website may not be all that utilized. However it does bring up the the point that the job market is not as unbiased/objective as we may like to think. As she also states recognizing a problem is the first step to doing something about it. This website may not suceed, but attractive people do seem to have a agvantage in the workplace. How can we decipher who is attractive or not? More often than not I think employers go for a canidate who is put together and looks nice. Does this translate to attractiveness? I know I always look my best when going to an interview.