Abstract
This paper investigates the role of physical attractiveness in retail managers’ decisions about hiring salespeople. Using data on attractiveness and the potential employment qualifications of 30 candidates, we found that retail managers prefer to hire candidates who are more physically attractive. This beauty premium can be explained by our findings on the positive correlation between candidates’ attractiveness and the perceived presence of traits essential for becoming a successful salesperson, such as charisma, kindness and persuasiveness. We also found that beauty plays a more important role for female candidates, from the earliest stage of the hiring process. No difference was found between the beauty premiums in the decisions of male and female retail managers. When this study’s results are coupled with results from previous studies demonstrating that an employee’s attractiveness has been found to influence both performance and behaviors of customers and managers, the managerial relevance of the attractiveness effect becomes apparent. Based on our findings, we recommend that retail managers remain vigilant about the potential for intentional or unintentional biases based on physical appearance when hiring employees.
Highlights
Cultural and social changes in recent years, social media and networking, have been accompanied by ever-more importance being placed on external appearance
We found that attractive people are believed to possess traits that are desirable for being a successful salesperson
We found that attractive candidates have a greater chance of being accepted for employment as salespeople
Summary
Cultural and social changes in recent years, social media and networking, have been accompanied by ever-more importance being placed on external appearance Increasing competitiveness in some industries has caused retail managers who consider candidates for employment to pay more attention to personal traits, such as appearance, in an attempt to gain or maintain their competitive edge [6]. To further analyze this process, we designed a two-stage study to test the role of physical attractiveness in the hiring process used by managers of retail stores. Our results indicate that attractive people are believed to possess the six desirable traits of successful salespeople
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