Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Why the pretty girl got the job, and not you (Hint: It’s not the good looks)

A true to life story goes that a lovely young lady with a fairly achieving career path got tired of hearing time and again that the real reason she gets the job is her gender, and more specifically her good looks. Fearing that she might just fall into self doubt after hearing such, she decided to carry out an experiment. She interviewed for a job, which she did not particularly care for, but was perfectly qualified for. She looked her professional best at the interview, but did not interview like she really wanted the job. For most part, she decided to smile, be pleasant and answer the questions just about adequately. Did she get the job? No, she did not.

She was vindicated. And all room for self-doubt vanished.

This is a common barb that women, especially young women, get to hear in the workplace. If they are attractive, the problem gets compounded. I have lost count of the number of women who have spoken about this over the years or the number of men who have said that about women, either in by the way conversations or with actual conviction.

The lady in question, of course has proven otherwise.

So what drives the perception?

As someone who has had the good fortune of working with many sharp as nails women here are my two cents. While gender and good looks don’t guarantee a job, unless it is in glamour or we are talking quotas, attractiveness can inform personality. Good looking people more likely find others gravitating towards them, going out of their way for them and generally being nicer to them from very early on. As a result, many develop socially secure personality types. They meet people expecting it to turn into a positive equation, they expect that if they ask for help, they will receive it and more generally, begin to expect positive outcomes for whatever they reach out to in life.

Needless to say, they often carry this personality trait into the workplace as well. And this goes not just for women, but for men too. While it is not true for every single case, the fact remains that more often than not, they tend to be more forthcoming, pleasant and therefore easier to engage with.

However, since social acceptance for these individuals is quite high, they often don’t develop an early knack for engaging in a manner that makes their brains shine, possibly because they don’t need to. And the converse is often true as well. The catch is, that they may as well be equally bright, but that aspect just stays undetected unless they are expected to perform. So women, often outperform the men in exams, for instance. The same is true of job interviews.  

Further, given the tendency towards stereotyping, if an attractive girl says something that is not particularly smart, she is branded quite easily as dumb. Not as having a bad day, or a blond moment. A leeway that is often given to others, especially men. But makers of hiring decisions often know better. And it is never as simple as a looks-based-criterion.


There is actually a lesson in this for everyone – just working on those features of our personalities that encourage security and confidence can be quite nurturing for us and give us exactly that extra edge. 

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