Usually physically attractive people are positively evaluated by others.  However, women applying for traditionally male jobs may be less positively evaluated.  Female gender coupled with attractive appearance may account for this disadvantage,

The “beauty is beastly effect” is a hiring bias favoring men or less attractive women for “masculine” jobs, described by Yale University’s Madeline E. Heilman and Lois R. Saruwatari.

They found that attractiveness was an advantage for men seeking managerial and non-managerial roles, but attractive women had an advantage only when seeking lower-level, non-managerial roles.

Attractiveness and gender can be considered a “stigma,” just as disability, pregnancy, obesity, and race.
Rice University’s Michelle R. Hebl and Robert E. Kleck of Dartmouth College reported that people in these categories can reduce hiring biases by acknowledging the “stigmatising” characteristic during the interview.

Women who proactively addressed the employer’s potential concern about gender or appearance in a traditionally male role were rated higher in employment suitability in a study by University or Colorado’s Stefanie K. Johnson and Traci Sitzmann, with Anh Thuy Nguyen of Illinois Institute of Technology.

This proactive approach buffered the impact “hostile sexism” while increasing “benevolent sexism’s” link to employment suitability ratings.

Evaluators said they assumed that these candidates possessed more “masculine” traits than other female candidates.
These assessors were less likely to negatively evaluate these women for behaving in contrast to traditional gender role norms.

-*How effective you found “pre-emptive objection-handling” in workplace negotiations?

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• Attractiveness Bias in Groups
• How Much Does Appearance Matter?
• Executive Presence: “Gravitas”, Communication…and Appearance?
• “Self-Packaging” as Personal Brand: Implicit Requirements for Personal Appearance?
• How Accurate are Personality Judgments Based on Physical Appearance?

©Kathryn Welds