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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

#151

Post by sawmurai »

orangepurple wrote: post #89
Ntrails wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diff…

Were you the hiring manager that had a problem with my @cocaine.ninja or @cock.li email address?

You made me almost catapult my breakfast through my nose xD

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

#152

Post by PeterisP »

leereeves wrote: post #94
albntomat0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because something isn't a legally protect group, doesn't mean discriminating against that group is acceptable.

This is why I dislike the idea of protected groups. Some people do seem to think that the existence of protected groups means it's ok to discriminate against anyone who isn't protected. But law is only about power. It has little relation to morality.

The whole point of job interviews is to perform discrimination according to some non-protected categories - for example, preferring more competent people over less competent people, more hardworking people over slackers, more reliable people over less reliable people, more experienced people over less experienced people, cheaper people over more expensive people, etc, etc.

It definitely is okay to discriminate over personal attributes, character and previous experiences, and employ the person who you want to work for you - which is not necessarily the same as the person 'most deserving of a job'. Freedom of association is an important right, people should be free to choose whom to deal with, and imposing restrictions on it (like the protected groups) is morally justified as an exception only if required by important reasons, for example, preventing the social harm done by racial discrimination in employment; in the default condition people should be free to refuse to associate with anyone simply because they don't want to.

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

#153

Post by langitbiru »

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…

It's one thing that attractive people fare better in workplaces. But they also fare better in the courtroom:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/so-sue-me/201408/do-...

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

#154

Post by PeterisP »

irrational wrote: post #70
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Will you not hire them if they don’t have a LinkedIn profile (or any other social media accounts)?

Depending on the job market, in situations where there are many good candidates for each position companies generally are satisficing not optimizing, and in that case simply discarding some percentage of candidates (i.e. anyone unusual) is not a drawback (since the difference between the best candidate and the next few runners-up is less than what you can measure) and so arbitrary filtering gets done.

Of course, that would usually not be an obstacle in job markets where acceptable candidates are scarce; SWE vacancies are not the same as journalist vacancies.

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

#155

Post by PeterisP »

sjhuang26 wrote: post #44
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…

At least in some job roles (B2B sales, management, professional services like consulting or legal, PR, media, etc) the social status and personal network is a genuine advantage that makes them more effective in that job role and more useful for the employer, so it should not be ignored. In some jobs you're hiring them to do a task within your organization, but in many other jobs you're hiring them to influence others outside your organization - and there status, connections and reputation are pretty much a bona fide occupational qualification.

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

#156

Post by __turbobrew__ »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #47
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.

This is why I removed my headshot from linkedin.

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

#158

Post by leereeves »

PeterisP wrote: post #152
leereeves wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I dislike the idea of protected groups. Some people do seem to think that the existence of protected groups means it's ok to discriminate against anyone who isn't protected. But law is only about power. It has little relation to morality.

The whole point of job interviews is to perform discrimination according to some non-protected categories - for example, preferring more competent people over less competent people, more hardworking people over slackers, more reliable people over less reliable people, more experienced people over less experienced people, cheaper people over more expensive people, etc, etc. It definitely is okay to discriminate over p…

> people should be free to choose whom to deal with, and imposing restrictions on it (like the protected groups) is morally justified as an exception only if required by important reasons

That reason is the same for any marginalized group: "preventing the social harm done by X discrimination".

Why not simplify the statement and say "preventing the social harm done by discrimination"?

Accepting discrimination against some people is inherently a hateful position.

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

#159

Post by PeterisP »

leereeves wrote: post #158
PeterisP wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of job interviews is to perform discrimination according to some non-protected categories - for example, preferring more competent people over less competent people, more hardworking people over slackers, more reliable people over less reliable people, more experienced people over less experienced people, cheaper people over more expensive people, etc, etc. It definitely is okay to discriminate over p…

> people should be free to choose whom to deal with, and imposing restrictions on it (like the protected groups) is morally justified as an exception only if required by important reasons That reason is the same for any marginalized group: "preventing the social harm done by X discrimination". Why not simplify the statement and say "preventing the social harm done by discrimination"? Accepting discrimination against…

Forcing people to work with someone against their will or preference also causes harm, and if society wants to do that it has to justify that the harm prevented is significantly greater than that - which is true for some types of discrimination and not true for others.

If nobody in the village wants to work with Bob because he's an asshole, they should be able to discriminate against Bob (and other assholes) as the social harm of Bob being unemployed and unemployable does not justify the social harm caused by the state coercing people to work with Bob, violating their freedom to choose. It would be harmful (and IMHO immoral) to prohibit discrimination against assholes. Freedom of association - and the freedom of not-associating it implies - is not inherently hateful, it is one of fundamental human rights that should be curtailed only if other alternatives aren't feasible - merely having some reason or some harm prevented is not necessarily enough.

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

#160

Post by rex-mundi »

elptacek wrote: post #52

And there it is, the one thing I can never have an honest conversation about. The rules are different for ugly people, based on my personal experience as one data point. We're the last lot that everyone can discriminate against, or abuse, and get away with it.

Don't worry, you're not the last group, from personal experience I can say people on the spectrum are fair game to descriminate against as we'll
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