Back to Dear Lucy homepageI’ve been interviewing candidates for a research job and, thanks to the recession, have had a very good shortlist. The two frontrunners are both excellent – they seem bright and keen and hardworking. One is reasonably good-looking; the other is exceedingly plain – obese and with bad skin. The role is not client facing so looks should not matter. Yet I find myself inclined to hire the person who looks more prepossessing – which is unfair as the plain one surely needs a break. What should I do?
Manager, female, 38
Lucy’s answer
You should hire the fat and spotty one. This is not because you feel he (or she?) deserves a break – it isn’t your job to play the role of social engineer. It is because he is almost certainly better at the job than the one who is easier on the eye.
I know you claim that the two are equally skilled and industrious. If you weare right about this, then you should hire the looker as lookers are easier to have around. But I don’t think you are right.
If you read the research, it will tell you that beautiful people are more successful than ugly ones. They are paid up to 15 per cent more and that they advance more quickly. This might make one inclined to choose the cute one.
However, if you consider the reason for this discrepancy, the odds shift towards the fatty. Beauties outperform beasts mainly because we expect them to do so. If you show people pictures of job candidates, they rate the beautiful as more trustworthy, more intelligent and more diligent than the plain. Fat people score particularly badly. One US study had people rate the obese as awkward, lazy, uncooperative and unconscientious.
Lookist perceptions run so deep they even affect sport, where one might have thought performance would speak for itself. According to my colleague Simon Kuper’s new book about football, hunks get picked more often for top teams as scouts are impressed by players who look the part.
Thus, for your plain candidate to to have got so far suggests he is far better than the other one. You should hire him at once – indeed, I hope you did so weeks ago. The only reason for not doing so is if you feel the heavy, spotty one looks so dreadful that you physically shrink from him. Then mark yourself down and hire the looker.
