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Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

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Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#41

Post by jjeaff »

maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

You used the qualifier "especially for design centered roles". I would maybe amend that to "only for design centered roles and a few others".

If I want to hire a hard core algorithm coder or a top level security specialist, I might not consider a neat and polished resume a negative signal, but I certainly wouldn't consider a less polished resume a negative signal. Because my experience with the type of people that are very good at those skills is that many couldn't care less about their profile photo or the font they use on their resume.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#42

Post by _Parfait_ »

maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

"But if you're going to get indignant about people being hired based on looks then you'd better stop using sites more attractive than craigslist or products more attractive than crocs."

Your first point raised about someone caring about their looks and the way their presented is a good one. But this last quote is strange.. If you're being hired for a non customer facing role do you really think this craigslist comparison is a fair one? I can get as gussied up as I can for a photo, but is it fair that the guy that looks more like Jake Gyllenhaal got hired even though I have a better skill set?

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#43

Post by Retric »

maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

I found the opposite. People with simple utilitarian resumes tended to have more actual accomplishments, while people who focused on what their résumé looked like tended to have glaring issues they where trying to hide.

Though I suspect this varies quite a bit by role.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#44

Post by sjhuang26 »

maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

Perhaps the "polish" of the resume is a signal for "professionalism and attention to detail." But I worry that the professionalism of the resume is a signal mostly for wealth and social status, factors which should be ignored in the hiring process. So I think that unless the resume is atrociously formatted, its "polish" should be ignored.

I read an article on LinkedIn [1] touching on a similar issue. The ideal resume quality standard is "not a lesson that every school or household teaches equally" and giving undue consideration to it may be "creating unnecessary barriers to entry for certain groups."

However, I think your experience in the hiring process is valid and would be open to changing my mind.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisi...

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#45

Post by mcv »

edent wrote: post #27
projektfu wrote: post #16

When I was in England for a short time I was tasked with screening candidates for employment (software engineers). As an American, I was taken aback by most of the resumes including photos. That's just not done here in the US. Some American HR departments might even send back your resume and ask you to resubmit it without a photo. It seems to be standard practice in Europe, perhaps to convince you that the person int…

That is extremely unusual for the UK. I know some European countries make a photo mandatory - but I've never seen it in the UK. I've reviewed a huge number of CVs - at SME and large companies. I think the only time I've ever seen a photo in that context was an auto-generated thing from LinkedIn.

As far as I know, it's very unusual in Netherland. I've certainly never included a photo on a CV (though I do have one on LinkedIn, where a lot of my work comes from). When I was part of the hiring process, I did notice that all Indian/TCS CVs I got to see had photos, though.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#46

Post by Ntrails »

edent wrote: post #27
projektfu wrote: post #16

When I was in England for a short time I was tasked with screening candidates for employment (software engineers). As an American, I was taken aback by most of the resumes including photos. That's just not done here in the US. Some American HR departments might even send back your resume and ask you to resubmit it without a photo. It seems to be standard practice in Europe, perhaps to convince you that the person int…

That is extremely unusual for the UK. I know some European countries make a photo mandatory - but I've never seen it in the UK. I've reviewed a huge number of CVs - at SME and large companies. I think the only time I've ever seen a photo in that context was an auto-generated thing from LinkedIn.

Eh, I see a few photos on CVs here in the UK - typically on Euro candidates though (from memory).

On the other hand I've seen all sorts of weird shit on CVs, it is part of the fun. From the guy giving himself 5/5 stars for inter-personal skills, to the obscure hobbies expanded on in great detail, to the hilarious email addresses.

There is just a wide range of views on what a cv should contain. My views doubtless differ to others! I did give a yes to the guy with the .txt file cv though. On principle.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#47

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

projektfu wrote: post #16

When I was in England for a short time I was tasked with screening candidates for employment (software engineers). As an American, I was taken aback by most of the resumes including photos. That's just not done here in the US. Some American HR departments might even send back your resume and ask you to resubmit it without a photo. It seems to be standard practice in Europe, perhaps to convince you that the person int…

As others have pointed out, even without photos on resumes, often times the first thing I do when looking at a candidate is go to their LinkedIn profile, which of course do feature headshots.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#48

Post by antiterra »

Retric wrote: post #43
maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

I found the opposite. People with simple utilitarian resumes tended to have more actual accomplishments, while people who focused on what their résumé looked like tended to have glaring issues they where trying to hide. Though I suspect this varies quite a bit by role.

Have worked at big SV companies where HR is forwarding the text paste of the resume with no corrected format. I would never tell someone not to make their resume look polished, but I have definitely seen people get lucrative jobs with a jumbled mess.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#49

Post by maxk42 »

_Parfait_ wrote: post #42
maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

"But if you're going to get indignant about people being hired based on looks then you'd better stop using sites more attractive than craigslist or products more attractive than crocs." Your first point raised about someone caring about their looks and the way their presented is a good one. But this last quote is strange.. If you're being hired for a non customer facing role do you really think this craigslist compar…

If that had happened, then no. But it didn't.

Re: Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters

#50

Post by faeriechangling »

maxk42 wrote: post #34

I'm going to buck the trend and say that candidates with attractive photos are quite possibly actually more competent. When hiring, I consider the content of a resume and not its aesthetics. But the people who go the extra mile to add polish: An attractive, well-formatted resume; being well-dressed for an interview; and even adding polish to a photo - are likely candidates who express the added attention to detail I'…

Prejudice wouldn’t be such an issue if there weren’t a grain of truth in it. Pretty much any superficial indicator that you’ve lived a harder life than average can be used as a way to guess that you might be a worse employee due to some lingering baggage and a less privileged upbringing.

The ugly just sadly don’t have affirmative action to compensate for this sort of thing.

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