You May Not Be Attractive Enough to Succeed, Says Research

Lookism — the beauty bias that may be holding you back

Wikimedia Commons | These aren’t real women — each image is a composite of 30 images but they were rated by people from a scale of 1 to 10 on hotness

I am in the middle of reading one of the best books written by Jeffrey Archer — Only Time Will Tell. Set in the early 1900s, the book refers to incidents that you’d find outrageous in the modern world.

As one of the widowed characters in the movies sets out to look for a job, she gets rejected for a strange set of reasons including ageism.

“Yes, but you’re too young, luv. Come back in two or three years’ time.”

“Oh, you’re twenty-two? You’re too old.”

Then, there’s another incident where she applies for a job as a barmaid in a local pub and is told:

“Sorry, luv, but your tits aren’t big enough.”

Outrageous, isn’t it? But, of course, this is fiction we’re talking about, and something that’s referring to a world a whole century ago. We must have gotten better at hiring the right people for the right jobs — solely based on their skillset.

Or not.

Attractiveness bias exists everywhere

Research suggests that a person’s appearance dictates how we perceive them on various fronts. This inherent bias purely based…