Have a big scar on your face? Maybe a huge mole? You might want to figure a way to cover up that mark if you’re seeking a job. A new study shows that marks (stigmas) on faces are huge distractions to interviewers, causing them to remember the stigma more than content.

“When evaluating applicants in an interview setting, it’s important to remember what they are saying,” Rice University Professor of Psychology Mikki Hebl said. “Our research shows if you recall less information about competent candidates because you are distracted by characteristics on their face, it decreases your overall evaluations of them.”

The research conclusions came from two studies. The first involved 171 undergraduate students watching a computer-mediated interview while tracking their eye activity. They had to recall candidate information after the interview.

“When looking at another person during a conversation, your attention is naturally directed in a triangular pattern around the eyes and mouth,” said Juan Madera, a University of Houston professor and co-author of the study. “We tracked the amount of attention outside of this region and found that the more the interviewers attended to stigmatized features on the face, the less they remembered about the candidate’s interview content, and the less memory they had about the content led to decreases in ratings of the applicant.”

Face-to-face interviews were held during the second study. Thirty-eight full-time managers enrolled in a part-time MBA and/or a Master of Science in a hospitality management program, all of whom had experience in interviewing applicants for current or past staff positions, interviewed candidates who had a facial birthmark.

Even with their workplace experience and education, the interviewers had a tough time managing their reactions to the stigma, Madera says. The stigma’s effects were actually stronger with this group, which he attributed to the face-to-face interview setting.

“It just shows that despite maturity and experience levels, it is still a natural human reaction to react negatively to facial stigma,” Madera said.

“The bottom line is that how your face looks can significantly influence the success of an interview,” Hebl said. “There have been many studies showing that specific groups of people are discriminated against in the workplace, but this study takes it a step further, showing why it happens. The allocation of attention away from memory for the interview content explains this.”

Well, now, even more proof that looks do matter. What, then, is a good solution?

(Photo via Flickr: Bart Everson / Creative Commons)