Unconscious Bias: Confronting Pretty Privilege in Hiring Practices
When we talk about workplace diversity and inclusion, we often discuss factors such as gender, race, and age. However, there's another subtle yet significant factor that tends to fly under the radar: pretty privilege. What role does attractiveness play in professional settings, particularly during the hiring process? Are we aware of how it influences our decisions? Let's unpack all of that here and see how we can make positive steps forward to ensure it's not having any detrimental impacts to professional success.
What is Pretty Privilege?
Pretty privilege refers to the societal advantages bestowed upon people who are perceived as physically attractive. In short, attractive people are commonly seen in a more positive light than their less attractive peers.
Pretty privilege is a form of unconscious bias, also known as the ‘Halo effect’. Psychologist Edward Thorndike coined the phrase ‘Halo effect’ in the early 20th century after finding that people who were judged to be superior in one way, were also considered superior in other unrelated characteristics. This bias can lead a person to assume that an attractive individual is also kind, intelligent, or trustworthy without sufficient evidence for that assumption.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Pretty Privilege
The advantages of pretty privilege include being more likely to be hired, to receive higher salaries, more favorable performance appraisals, and faster promotions. People deemed in this category are more likely to be heard and to be invited to take part. Pretty privilege can be self sustaining in this regard as such a positive environment promotes feelings of self worth and improved confidence, which in turn will improve work performance. A research study published in the Journal of Social Stratification and Mobility found that attractive individuals can earn roughly 20% more than their less attractive counterparts.
The Halo effect can also work the other way. Negative first impressions are just as pervasive in wider assessments of a candidate as positive first impressions are. A negative first impression of a less attractive person will lead to more negative judgments without any objective basis for that.
The Ethical Implications of Pretty Privilege
While there is no legal recourse for discrimination based on the physical appearance of a candidate, this bias raises several ethical questions. This is true particularly when you consider that people will often unconsciously gravitate to people that are similar to them. This can include similarities such as race, gender, ethnicity, age or sexual orientation. Such bias in decision making can lead to discrimination of the protected classes.
Reliance on physical appearance in hiring practices will ultimately contribute to a less diverse and inclusive workplace. Are we, perhaps unknowingly, perpetuating inequality by favoring those who fit a certain aesthetic norm?
Steps Toward Change
Addressing pretty privilege in the hiring process, and unconscious bias in general, begins with awareness and revising recruitment best practices. Organizations can take actionable steps such as:
Implement Bias Training: Provide workshops, training courses and additional resources to educate employees about the concept of unconscious bias and increase awareness. Understanding that biases exist and recognizing how they can affect decisions is a crucial step in mitigating their impact.
Clarify Shortlisting Criteria: Maintain absolute clarity on the minimum requirements for the role at the initial screening process to ensure that candidates that do not meet the minimum requirements are eliminated before the interview process begins. Program ATS tools carefully to identify and vet key skills, education, and experience only.
Anonymize Application Forms: Rather than submitting resumes, have candidates complete an application form that does not include their name, address, photo, or date of birth. Anonymizing candidates in initial screening can help to eliminate bias in this way and ensure a more equitable process, and you can also choose to have video off for the first round interview.
Adopt Structured Interviews: Standardizing the interview process using structure and rubrics helps to minimize subjective judgments and ensure that every candidate is given the same set of interview questions.
Standardized Evaluation Criteria: Create standardized criteria alongside the question rubric to evaluate each candidate, including a set scoring system that each assessor will use to ensure that each candidate is scored with the same standards in mind.
Robust Recruitment Process: Ensure that the recruitment process contains multiple stages that include a variety of activities, not just spoken interviews. You can incorporate other elements such as practical tests, job simulations, take-home projects, case studies, cognitive ability tests, and personality assessments to get a more well-rounded assessment of candidates, and more opportunities for candidates to highlight their strengths.
Involve More People: Have more than one person involved in the recruitment process to help balance out any bias and improve the reliability of hiring decisions. Ensure that hiring panelists are a diverse group where possible, and have equal input on relevant reviews.
These actionable strategies can be adopted to create a fairer hiring process and minimize unconscious bias – pretty privilege or otherwise!
Notes for Job Hunters
Pretty Privilege and the Halo effect are generally a way for the brain to shortcut its assessment of another person, rather than doing the work of active listening, careful observation, and making objective judgements. By being aware of this flaw in human nature, job hunters can understand the importance of making a good first impression, alongside the need to protect themselves from unconscious bias. Here are some tips to help you achieve this when you're on the hunt for a job:
Add Anonymity to Your Resume: Be mindful of unconscious bias when adding details to your resume. It’s not necessary to add your date of birth, address, or headshot photo. Leaving these details off will help to ensure that interviews are offered based on other factors such as education and experience.
Virtual First Impressions: Even before an in-person interview has been arranged, ensure that all of your written and verbal communications are clear, concise, and free of grammatical and spelling errors. Audit your social media profiles to ensure that they reflect the professional image that you want to portray and in virtual interviews make sure that your background, setting, and attire are appropriate and that your technology is adequate for the task.
Real First Impressions: Dress appropriately for the industry and the company. A polished, clean, professional appearance can create a positive first impression that will leave the interviewer more open to seeing your qualities and receiving your ‘pitch’ more favorably. Display confidence through your body language. This includes a firm handshake, maintaining eye contact, sitting up straight, and avoiding nervous habits. Confident body language signals strength and self assurance and shows enthusiasm and a positive attitude.
Highlight Key Strengths Early: When given the opportunity, highlight your key strengths and accomplishments early in the interview. Early positive information can set the tone for the rest of the interview.
Prepare Well: Research the company, its values and the role thoroughly. Prepare your questions, practice answering interview questions and know your resume and key talking points well. A polished, prepared and confident candidate leaves an impression of competence and genuine interest in the role -- something you can learn in our Candidate Confidence course.
Follow Up: Send a thank-you note or email after the interview, reiterating your interest in the role and highlighting a key point from the discussion. This leaves a lasting positive impression.
Mitigating unconscious bias from the candidate side involved carefully disclosing your personal information while also creating a strong initial impression that positively influences the assessor's overall perception of you throughout.
A Call to Action
Overall, awareness of bias is crucial for both employers and job seekers. Employers should implement objective hiring practices that focus on skills and qualifications, potentially using tools like anonymized candidate evaluations to mitigate bias. For job seekers, understanding these biases can help in strategizing their job search and advocating for fair treatment in the recruitment process. By understanding and addressing pretty privilege and the halo effect more generally, individuals and organizations can make more balanced and equitable decisions.
We encourage you to reflect on your own perceptions, assumptions, and the potential biases you might bring into your professional decisions. Discussing these issues openly can help foster a more inclusive corporate culture that truly values diversity in all its forms.
Let's engage in this conversation not just here but in our teams and organizations. What steps can you take to ensure your hiring practices are fair and unbiased?