The effects of face attractiveness onpre-selective recruitment

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine how facial attractiveness of applicants influences pre-selective evaluation in two different occupational fields (one relational and one non-relational). A total of 224 participants (working individuals and students) were asked to judge a fictitious applicant based on a resumé (applicant’s qualifications: highly vs. less qualified) and a photograph (attractive vs. unattractive). Overall, the results showed that facial-attractiveness effects on interpersonal judgments are not absolute, and that their occurrence partly depends on the situation in which the judgments are made. Regardless of occupational field, when the applicants were highly qualified (whether attractive or unattractive) they were systematically judged positively, whereas in the case of less qualified applicants, facial attractiveness differentially affected judgments in the two occupational fields: less-qualified but attractive applicants were only judged more favorably than less-qualified and unattractive ones when the job involved relational skills.