Your wingman could help you land a job: How beauty composition of applicants affects the call-back probability

Attakrit Leckcivilize and Alexander Straub

Labour Economics, 2020, vol. 65, issue C

Abstract: This paper analyses how both own appearance and the beauty composition of other candidates influence the chances of being selected for a job interview. Based on our lab experiment with randomised CVs, we confirm the role of appearance on job recruitment. Importantly, we show that appearance of other applicants with the same gender has significant incremental effects on top of the existing beauty premium. This “wingman effect” is more pronounced in high skilled occupations and mainly among male recruiters. We provide evidence that the “wingman effect” is not driven by system one decision making and predominantly affects choices at the margin.

Keywords: Beauty premium; Decoy effect; Labour discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D90 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:65:y:2020:i:c:s0927537120300610

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101857

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