The effects of facial beauty in personnel selection: a field work in retail sector

Abstract

Determinants of personnel selection are education, experience, work related skills and examination results etc. but does beauty seem to be an advantage in work life? Are beautiful or attractive people more preferable? As facial beauty is the most significant factor for attractiveness, this study investigates effects of it in personnel selection. In the last 30 years, facial beauty has been discussed in academic studies and over 2000 articles have been published on this subject (Bashour, 2006; 741). The purpose of this paper is to question whether facial beauty affects personnel selection in retail sector or not. The paper consists of a literature research and a survey as well. In the survey, 100 photographs of hired and unhired people are scored by 100 students of human research management. The evaluation consists of Likert-type scale of 10 (between 1-3 points are unattractive, 4-6 points are normal, 7-10 points are attractive). After the evaluation, preferred photographs and hired staff were compared. According to the result of the research, there was not a meaningful correlation between facial beauty and hired people in personnel selection, so facial beauty is not important. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.