Two economists have released a report that says if a female HR
professional receives a resume including a photo from an attractive
female applicant, the resume is likely to land in the bin because of
jealousy and rivalry. The researchers sent bogus applications to more than 2,500 real job
vacancies. For each job, they sent two very similar resumes, one without
a photo and one with a photo of either an ‘attractive’ or a ‘plain’
applicant.

The researchers found that while resumes with photos of physically
attractive women were far less likely to land an interview than those
without a photo, resumes with photos of handsome men were more likely to
result in an interview than those who didn’t include a photo.

In this
particular study, 93% of the HR staff responsible for hiring were
female and the researchers said they tested a range of theories before coming to
the conclusion: “Female jealousy of attractive women in the workplace
and the negative perception of women (but not men) who include pictures
of themselves on their CVs are the primary reasons for the punishment of
attractive women.”

Read the full article here at HC Online.

Your thoughts?  Have you seen an example of this?  I’d love to include some local stories about it in my new book…