Sunday, 6 July 2025

Conflicting signals from attractiveness and education may reduce the chance of getting a job

There is fairly robust evidence of a beauty premium in the labour market (see the links at the end of this post for some examples). More attractive people earn more than less attractive people, ceteris paribus (holding everything else equal). One of the arguments for why this correlation may be causal (that is, attractiveness causes better labour market outcomes) is that attractiveness is a signal that conveys that the person will perform better in a particular job. [*] So, employers might employ more attractive people, thinking that they will be better workers. Another signal of good job performance is education. Employers employ more highly educated people, thinking that they will be better workers. But what happens if these two signal conflict?

That is the question that is addressed in this new article by Christopher Marquis (University of Cambridge), András Tilcsik (University of Toronto), and Ying Zhang (Singularity Academy), published in the American Journal of Sociology (ungated earlier version here). They hypothesise that:

HYPOTHESIS 1.—For higher-status positions, employers will favor applicants with both physically attractive looks and elite educational credentials over applicants who lack either or both of those valued status dimensions.

HYPOTHESIS 2.—For lower-status positions, employers will favor applicants without physically attractive looks and elite educational credentials over applicants who possess either or both of those valued status dimensions.

And for those whose education and attractiveness do not send the same signal, Marquis et al. note that:

...perhaps most interesting is the situation of applicants with discrepant status characteristics—those who are more attractive but from a less elite institution and those who possess elite educational credentials but are less attractive. In contrast to expectations from prior research, our theoretical framework implies that status-inconsistent applicants elicit ambiguous expectations and are thus less likely to be seen as a clear fit for either higher-status or lower-status positions.

Marquis et al. test their hypotheses using two studies: (1) a CV audit study in China, where they sent fictitious applications for various jobs and noted the callback rate for fictitious applicants with different characteristics (physical attractiveness, and education); and (2) a survey experiment in the US, where they asked research participants whether a fictitious applicant should be recommended for an interview for a particular job.

In the China study, they applied for jobs in the "sales" category across six cities on the job website Zhaopin.com. They applied once for each job, randomly varying the picture on the CV (since Chinese CVs typically include a headshot photo), and the education of the applicant (distinguishing between local universities ranked 10-39 on Project 985, and those ranked 40-116). Focusing on callback rates, Marquis et al. find that:

Overall, status-consistent combinations led to more callbacks than status-inconsistent combinations at a rate of approximately 1.7 to 1 (11.7% vs. 6.8%). This difference is significant statistically (P < .001) and substantively.

When looking at jobs of different status levels, Marquis et al. then find that:

...when restricting the sample to jobs with above-average salaries... the high-high combination of university status and attractiveness was more likely to lead to an interview invitation than the low-low combination (P < .10), the high-low combination (P < .05), and the low-high combination (P < .01). These differences were substantively significant as well; for example, the callback rate for the high-high combination in this subsample (24.4%) was about 1.7 times as high as for the low-low combination (14.1%)...

...for jobs with below-average salaries, the low-low combination led to more callbacks than any of the other combinations and that callback rates for the other three combinations were not significantly different from one another. The low-low combination had a substantial advantage in this subsample, generating 1.8 times as many callbacks (22.8%) as the high-high combination (12.9%).

This was consistent with their hypotheses. However, is this peculiar to the Chinese context? To test that, Marquis et al. then conducted the survey experiment in the US. They use a sample of 2020 people 'with hiring experience', recruited through the online panel Prolific. They showed each research participant a profile photo (as would be found on a professional social media site like LinkedIn), and the CV, and distinguished education based on three levels:

Using the 2022 National University Rankings of U.S. News and World Report, we selected universities from California, New York state, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. From each state, we included (a) one institution ranked among the top 25 national universities, (b) one ranked in the 25–75 range, and (c) one not ranked among the top 75 national universities.

Marquis et al. then:

...asked participants to indicate the likelihood that they would interview the candidate for the position and the likelihood that they would give the candidate an offer, both on 1 (low) to 7 (high) Likert-type scales. We averaged these two items into an overall rating of the candidate for the job in question...

Similar to the Chinese results, Marquis et al. find that:

...for the higher-status position, the mean rating for the combination of elite university status and high physical attractiveness was significantly higher than the average of the five other combinations (5.92 vs. 5.53, P < .0003) and significantly higher than the mean of the second most favored combination (5.92 vs. 5.67, P < .04).

And for the lower-status position:

...the overall ratings for the two combinations of nonelite university status and lower physical attractiveness were significantly higher than the average of the other four combinations (6.04 vs. 5.72, P < .001; 6.01 vs. 5.72, P < .003). The ratings of the two combinations of nonelite university status and lower physical attractiveness were also higher than the mean of the next highest combination (6.04 vs. 5.77, P < .014; 6.01 vs. 5.77, P < .027).

Marquis et al. then use the US sample to look into the mechanism driving the results. Unsurprisingly:

...candidates with status-inconsistent combinations might fall between two stools: they are not perceived to be the most qualified candidates when they target higher-status jobs, and they are seen as lacking organizational commitment when they apply for lower-status jobs. Moreover, for both types of positions, these candidates generate greater evaluative uncertainty than other applicants.

When the two signals conflict, evaluators have less certainty about the applicant and rate them lower. This should be a cautionary tale for job applicants: make sure that all of your signals are conveying the same information about your quality as a job applicant, or you may find your application falling to the bottom of the pile.

*****

[*] I'm not sure that I find this argument very convincing, but Marquis et al. rely on a citation to this 1983 article (ungated version here) from a sociology journal to support it. In economics, for a signal to be effective, it must be costly, and costly in such a way that those with lower-quality attributes wouldn't want to attempt the signal. Being attractive is costly (or, at least, personal grooming is). But is it costly in such a way that people with low job performance wouldn't be able (or willing) to send the signal? I have my doubts. Anyway, I've put this argument aside for the moment, because the more interesting point in this article is what happens when two signals are conflicting.

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