A new study has shown being too handsome can do more bad for a man’s career than good.
Researchers have said good looking blokes are much less likely to bag their dream job thanks to them appearing ‘threatening’ to male bosses.
Although it may seem like being easy on the eye comes with zero consequences, there are in fact many and various.
For example, it’s rare I go anywhere in public when someone doesn’t ask if I’m related to Paul Newman.
Last week, while on the phone to my bank about some miscellaneous issue, I found myself on the receiving end of a chirpse. My brazen, envy-inducing psychical appearance had somehow translated over smartphone.
As for work place shortcomings, I regret to inform you I’ve been held back and even fired thanks to my looks. During my stint as a Christmas temp at Argos at the age of 19, there was one instance when I went over to a woman in her fifties as she struggled to browse an item in the catalogue.
‘Are you in this thing?’ she asked me, winking. ‘Excuse me, m’am?’ I said.
‘Come on – don’t act like you aren’t batting them away, gorgeous.’
‘Please. I’m flattered, but can you tell me what it is you’re looking for?’
We went back and forth for what seemed like hours until she eventually reported me for harassing her. I was fired the next morning.
For the next two years I received benefits, unable to find work down to the fact I was ‘Stupidly attractive’, ‘a Michelin star dish’ and ‘hands down the sexiest man I have ever had the fortune of laying eyes on,’ or so my advisor put it.
Anyhow, lead researcher and assistant professor Sun Young Lee of Maryland University, said of this new finding:
Managers are affected by stereotypes and make hiring decisions to serve their own self-interests so organisations may not get the most competent candidates.
With more companies involving employees in recruitment processes, this important point needs attention.
Awareness that hiring is affected by potential work relationships and stereotyping tendencies can help organisations improve their selection processes.
Actor Rob Lowe once complained he had found it hard to be taken seriously due to his good looks.
‘There’s this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people, that they can’t be in pain or they can’t have rough lives or be deep or interesting,’ he said.
‘They can’t be any of the things that you long to play as an actor. I’m getting to play those parts now and loving it. When I was a teen idol, I was so goddamn pretty I wouldn’t have taken myself seriously.’
Boy, do I know that feeling.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via stories@unilad.co.uk
