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Cath Everett

Sift Media

Freelance journalist and former editor of HRZone

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Jealous HR staff ‘bin CVs with pics of pretty rivals’

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It appears that internet sensation Samantha Brick may have a point – research has revealed that women should beware of attaching photos of themselves to their CVs because jealous HR staff have a habit of binning them.

Brick, a former TV presenter, who has widely been accused of being an internet troll – or someone who deliberately posts deliberately provocative comments online to generate a response – caused a sensation when she claimed in a Daily Mail article earlier this week that, while no man could resist her, women hated her for her “lovely looks”.
 
But according to Israeli scientists there may be something to her claims – in the workplace at least. Bradley Ruffle, a scientist who tested the reaction of Israeli employment agencies with 2,656 job applications and recorded the number of call-backs he received, found that only 12% responded positively to a women’s CV if her picture was attached.
 
Just over a third responded negatively, while the rest were neutral. Interestingly, however, women who included no image of themselves were called back for interview 30% more frequently than attractive females who did attach one.
 
Moreover, Ruffle pointed out that the effect was amplified in those countries such as the UK and US where including pictures with CVs was fairly new (the practice is common in Israel.)
 
In a post for the Harvard Business Review, he said: “What Ze’ev and I found is a clear distortion in the market for talent. In countries where CV photos are common, screeners routinely eliminate qualified applicants without giving them a chance to make their case in person.”
 
In countries where pictures were rarely used, the selection process could be skewed “even more seriously”, he added.
 
“If this were a perfect world, attaching a photo to your CV would do nothing more than allow a prospective employer to put a face to your name. But in the real world, providing your image unleashes beauty discrimination at the earliest stages of the hiring process,” Ruffle said.
 
The implication was that organisations could be doing themselves a disservice by allowing their HR departments and hiring committees to remain predominantly female.
 
“Creating a more balanced gender mix might reduce the level of bias against female candidates whose only failing is that they’re physically attractive,” Ruffle said.

One Response

  1. Beauty Discrimination

    Isn’t the flip side to this arguement that employers might be ruling out applicants who appear to be trying to use their looks to gain an advantage?

Author Profile Picture
Cath Everett

Freelance journalist and former editor of HRZone

Read more from Cath Everett
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