job search – Jason Hensel

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)

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One of the most ridiculous parts of the job hiring process is letting a company conduct a credit check to determine if you are financially responsible. Yes, I can see how this might be a good process for a job at a bank, for example. But just because you have a good or bad credit score shouldn’t qualify or disqualify you for most jobs.

Now, there’s some research to back up my belief. In fact, people who have good credit scores are more likely rude.

In a study to be published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers from Louisiana State University, Texas Tech University and Northern Illinois University focused on links between credit ratings and personalities.

“With regards to personality and credit–it makes sense that conscientiousness is related to good credit, but what was really interesting was that agreeableness was negatively related to your credit score,” said Jeremy Bernerth, assistant professor in LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business Rucks Department of Management. “That suggests easy-going individuals actually have worse credit scores than disagreeable and rude individuals. This suggests that agreeable individuals might get themselves in trouble by co-signing loans for friends or family or taking out additional credit cards at the suggestion of store clerks.”

The researchers also found that there’s no correlation between poor scores and bad behavior on the job.

“It was telling that poor credit scores were not correlated to theft and other deviant types of work behaviors,” said Bernerth. “Most companies attempt to justify the use of credit scores because they think such employees will end up stealing, but our research suggests that might not be the case.”

I shared this study with an HR professional. She suggested that those who score poorly could also be more naive, which is something you don’t want in the workplace.

Interesting. Would you rather have a nice and naive or disagreeable and rude employee working for or with you?

(Photo via Flickr: Richard Lemarchand / Creative Commons)

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Jason Hensel

Your Face May Keep You from Getting Hired

Good Credit Scores and Rudeness