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When Glasses Land the Gig: Employers Still Choose Workers Who 'Look the Part'
- sydbarrett74 3y agoPeople are shallow and superficial. News at 11.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- datadrivenangel 3y ago"In fact, having particular characteristics is comparable to a 5 percent boost in pay" Looking the part is worth some money! This of course contributes to gender imbalances in software.
- creer 3y agoOn average, they report, but good vs bad marketing is normally worth much more. So the extremes in great vs bad photo are most likely much more. Paying attention and getting help is worth money.
- rpmisms 3y agoMaybe? My personal observation is that female engineers who prefer dark clothing and wear glasses are often the best engineers. Is that sexist or is that using a different measure vs. beards for men? I'm fully aware that these metrics are easily broken. Best eng I ever met dressed and talked like a complete hillbilly. Best female eng I ever met looked homeless, and indeed, did a lot of crack at one point.
- itronitron 3y agoMaybe you just perceive women that wear dark clothing to be better engineers because either you perceive them as less feminine, or because you are less distracted by their anatomical features (when they wear dark clothing).
- rpmisms 3y agoMaybe? Dark clothing is generally something I find attractive, and unless exceptionally baggy, I can get a pretty decent idea of body type. I think it's the more utilitarian "vibe". If you're not thinking about matching colors, you probably have a more utilitarian mindset. This applies to male engineers too, except there's other more important signals there.
- loco5niner 3y agoor the women are self-selecting for clothing that is more utilitarian?
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoI don't know that it's sexist per se, but if you use it to predict the outcome of future interactions (which I am assuming you do since you actually posted it here), then that is an example of bias. IANAL but probably actionable in the US. So if your remark is, "In my limited experience I've worked with only 10 female engineers and the eight good ones all wore dark clothing and wear glasses. That's a funny and unlikely distribution!" then you're good. If your remark is "I can determine if a female engineer is any good based on whether or not she is wearing dark clothing and glasses" then you probably have no business working in the field at all.
- rpmisms 3y agoMy remark is closer to the former. The latter would be silly, but an excellent tweet. I'm in the Damore camp on this issue, though.
- lowbloodsugar 3y ago>I'm in the Damore camp on this issue, though. Which parts? The "men and women communicate differently" part or the "women are neurotic" part? And if the former, do you take it as far as "Better not hire women, because it's all guys here, and we don't want to have to learn how to communicate with them?"
- rpmisms 3y agoWomen and men are different and communicate differently, tech is usually a male-calibrated environment, to get more women, you need to adjust the environment. "Women are neurotic" is talking about the neuroticism trait. Women also score higher on average on agreeableness, for example. That's hard data, spoken in unflattering terms. The former just means you need communication standards that are balanced.
- a_techwriter_00 3y agoMan, I seriously hope people don't use what they post here to predict the outcome of future interactions.
- spacemadness 3y agoI really hope you are not a manager. And if you are you think a little more about your personal biases when hiring.
- rpmisms 3y agoI can set aside my impressions, but they exist. That's pretty normal, and unfortunately I'm a lot less biased than many tech hiring panels these days.
- sizzle 3y agocorrelation \= causation
- rpmisms 3y agoNo, I'm pretty sure that putting dark clothes and glasses on a woman makes her an amazing engineer.
- Gibbon1 3y agoI've come to the conclusion affinity fraud is a very wide spectrum. You got guys like Madoff on one end. And people carefully picking out clothes and watching their accent on the other. I think of the latter as low grade affinity fraud. An example a friend. Branches of her family are very wealthy almost old money. She could take something out of her closet and go to a party thrown by old money, fit right in and no one would suspect she's broke.
- elcritch 3y agoFor better or worse it’s all part of human social networks. The looks, the lingo, etc all add up to help identify in-group vs out-group. Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger it annoyed me much more. However now I accept that at some level it’s just part of the “human social dance”. Given that large societies, governments, corporations, etc all exist and can function shows that there’s something to it. Who knows, perhaps Neanderthals didn't do these social rituals and that prevented them scaling social networks and eventually dying out.
- foobarian 3y agoWait until you hear how many more cars I sold at the local dealership once I started showing up in a nice suit instead of shorts and flip-flops!
- hgomersall 3y agoIt's funny, because i really really distrust that super slick fully suited salesman getup. I'm much more likely to be suckered in by a surfer dude in beach wear.
- blharr 3y agoYou are probably on the demographic not to get suckered in the first place
- sizzle 3y agoWhat was the car segment such as luxury, economy, etc.?
- m3kw9 3y agoDon’t profile!” People yell. But deep down humans are profiling machines
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LanceH 3y agoAnd nobody is allowed to research in which instances they are correct.
- Danjoe4 3y agoThis is actually rational discrimination. Excessive near-work literally causes myopia so one should deduce individuals with glasses have spent more time in front of a computer.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoLASIK/PRK laser correction is only a few thousand dollars. I haven’t had myopia since I was 25, and I should not need (reading) glasses again until 45. And of course, contact lenses.
- vikingerik 3y agoThe latter part is true, just FYI for anyone, you do need reading glasses eventually post-Lasik. I had it at age 29, and now at age 45 (and starting around 42) I do need reading glasses for anything closer than about a foot.
- bluGill 3y agoI looked into it when I was 20 and decided that the risk were not worth it. Of course things are probably better 25 years later, I haven't checked again. But then again at almost 50 I now cannot work at a computer without reading glasses and surgery still can't fix that. A large part of the risk for me was I discovered I can get prescription safety glasses, and if I can't see without glasses I will never risk forgetting to put on safety glasses when I need them.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoAs far as I understand, there are very few risks these days. You can even move your eye around while the laser is shaping your cornea, since the laser has the ability to keep track of it and move along with the eye. One of the best decisions I ever made, in terms of making life more convenient, especially physical activities.
- bumby 3y ago>surgery still can't fix that. As far as I know, they can adjust for reading distance but you may have to make a choice in terms of what they distance they optimize for. I know people who got surgery after 40 (when your lens tends to be less pliable) that had one eye set for near-sighted and one for far-sighted.
- Danjoe4 3y agoSomeone please post the full article link. I'm uninterested in some journalist's interpretation of the study.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- greyface- 3y agoIt's the first and only hyperlink in the article.
- creer 3y ago(Clickbait because it's really not much about eyeglasses) This is really interesting because not so long ago, photos were frowned upon on resumes because they were too obvious a path to racial, gender or class-based discrimination (not that names wouldn't often give it away but still). So that some companies would discuss removing photos or even names. Now photos are a good way to keep the recruiting process honest by avoiding someone else doing the interview - other than the candidate. Aaaand perhaps discrimination is encouraged again (?) with things like "looking the part" - and no doubt age? Suprised this paper doesn't mention that? How about a tie? Is discriminating on the basis of tie-wearing okay? A fundamental problem with class-based discrimination law: eyeglasses-discrimination is most likely fine. But some of what the research "uncovers" is really just good marketing: "For graphic designers, [...] have a high quality, professional-looking photo (with a small plus for glasses). Other hacks for programmers: [...] keep a computer visible". I removed the bits about "female" and "beard" - also marketing but less legally acceptable. "having particular characteristics is comparable to a 5 percent boost in pay" and "0.3 percent increase in the stars [...] rating". Now that one is shocking and mostly invalidates the study. Because normally good marketing is worth a lot more than that. That hints to me that customers are actually not paying attention to photos? I suspect it's much more extreme in Bad and Great photos (Great not in Professional but in Fitting.)
- flappyeagle 3y agoBecause of LinkedIn we all have photos on CV again
- irrational 3y agoOr... don't get a job through a platform that requires a photo.
- otikik 3y agoOnly if you look the part.
- kleiba 3y agoThere are countries where an application photo is mandatory.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago...wait, ...why? Call it a failure-of-imagination on my part, but I can't see any good reason for having a law like that; it gives of the vibes of wanting to protect an establishment based on discrimination.
- kleiba 3y agoIt's not so much a law but it's such a well-established custom that it might as well be a law: send your application in without a photo and it's pretty much guaranteed to be discarded. But given that traditionally you always have a job interview before being hired, I don't think that there's much discrimination going on: your face will be known sooner or later anyway.
- bomewish 3y agoFeels like the researchers were going for a race/gender angle but it didn’t come through in the data so the result was just super vague “pictures often end up as tie breakers”. Maybe the pictures give hiring managers some utils because they show the person is real or something? Also not clear what control variables they used. Overall just not super clear or convincing. Shoulda done an experiment — although that would have probably wasted even more human capital.
- mlhpdx 3y ago36% of the US workforce? Stopped reading right there. My experience as an employer tells me they are not entirely trustworthy and that kind of absurd claim confirms it IMHO.
- cj 3y ago> Freelancers constituted 36 percent of the US workforce in 2021, according to Upwork The stat seems plausible if you replace "freelancer" with "independent contractors". Although some quick googling surfaces stats closer to 10-20% for the percent of workers who are contractors. (The majority of these contract jobs aren't ones you would find on Upwork, though)
- pengaru 3y agoAges ago when I got my first pair of glasses, already working as a sysadmin/system engineer with long hair and a unix beard... my friend and colleague said on my first day @ work in glasses, something to the effect of: "it's amazing how by just adding glasses you went from stoner to professor"
- rdelpret 3y agoI noticed years ago that people treated me differently at work when I wore glasses. I would do experiments and wear them for a couple weeks to a month then go back to contacts and observe the difference. I work in tech.
- makeworld 3y agoCould you expand on the differences you experienced?
- appplication 3y agoThings were blurrier without
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nvarsj 3y agoWhat’s the minimum viable beard length?
- polski-g 3y agoThere is a positive correlation between IQ and corrective vision, so this in turn leads to stereotyping as "those with glasses are higher IQ". There are so many problems caused by Griggs v Ohio (which banned IQ tests for employment).
- DaiPlusPlus 3y agoIQ is not a useful metric (both as far as most prospective employers, and myself, go): what matters more to the bottom-line is total ability to-do-the-job, where soft-skills and EQ matter just-as-much, if not far greater than, a dimenionless scalar that simply indicates' one's ability to do well on IQ tests. I'm glad IQ tests are banned for employment purposes.
- obviouslynotme 3y agoIQ is an incredibly useful metric and why we sort our society on SAT scores. It's just not the only useful metric.
- snowwrestler 3y agoWe do not sort our society on SAT scores.
- polski-g 3y agoI'm certain you have heard phrases similar to the ones you just wrote before, by people just as clueless about the predictive validity of IQ, as you are.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago> predictive validity of IQ I'm not disputing that. I just think it's dehumanising to reduce someone down to a single number, especially when so many other factors about a person need to be taken into consideration. My moral-outrage here is my impression that the OP thinks IQ is all that matters, or that it's valid to make significant life-impacting and (business-impacting) decisions based solely on that number. To me, it's same bad-idea as the UK's "11+" exam system (fortunately now long abandoned) that practically determined someone's entire life based on a single exam taken at age 11. --- Also, I find it somewhat amusing that the more someone cares about high IQ scores, the lower their EQ scores tend to be.
- CLIML 3y ago[dead]
- assimpleaspossi 3y agoLong ago, I was on the advertising board of a major restaurant chain. We had a meeting with out advertising agency where they were trying to push some statistics to us about when and where to place some TV ads. Some of us were skeptical and we asked to be given a presentation by the lady who came up with the figures. Before we met her, one of the board members said, "I was told that it always works out that if this person is frumpy and wearing glasses then we should believe her." She was frumpy. Wore glasses. And 100% correct on her TV time buying recommendations.
- thejazzman 3y ago> I HAVE NOTICED THAT WHITE PEOPLE REVERE BLACK PEOPLE IN GLASSES -- Leon Black https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=curb-your-enthusiasm_08_09_198×tamp=0%3A9%3A5.195&text=I+HAVE+NOTICED%0ATHAT+WHITE+PEOPLE+REVERE%0ABLACK+PEOPLE+IN+GLASSES%2C&dimensions=1920x1080&at=%2Fcurb-your-enthusiasm%2F08%2F09%2F0-9-5-195&series=Curb+Your+Enthusiasm&season=08&episodeNumber=09&episodeTitle=Mister+Softee https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=curb-your-enthusiasm_08_09_198...
- maest 3y agoIs this a US thing?
- s1artibartfast 3y agoI assume based on the cultural implications
- cantSpellSober 3y agoSuperficial biases might land someone the interview but > freelancers who “look the part” are more likely to be hired* ...to be hired? This surprises me, a good hiring process would mitigate the effects of this bias somewhat, no?
- extrememacaroni 3y agoah yes, the mythical good hiring process.
- cantSpellSober 3y agoAre all hiring processes exactly the same? Or are some better than others? If the latter, are any better enough to be good?
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Are all hiring processes exactly the same? No, but almost none of them are “good” if “good” is defined as “eliminates all influence of biases irrelevant to performance such that superficial things like appearance play a role not explicable by their ability to predict performance.”
- cantSpellSober 3y ago>> Are all hiring processes exactly the same? > No Agreed! Some are better than others. > if “good” is defined as... Oh, I never defined "good" that way. Keyword being "mitigate" (you replaced it with "eliminate"). Apologies for your confusion.
- dragonwriter 3y agoYou used the word “mitigate” but in the same post also expressed surprise that any bias effect was left at all, which indicated you expected elimination of the effect from a “good hiring process" rather than mere mitigation.
- wly_cdgr 3y agoYes, well, we keep making people read Shakespeare during our most impressionable years.
- wedn3sday 3y agoThis is why I wear blue light glasses to all my interviews. Glasses bias is a real thing!
- Willish42 3y agoThis article was very uninformative for the subject / claim it's making. I found https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/05/glasses-eyes-use-rising/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/05/glasses-e... to be a much better read, recently written, on essentially the same subject, for anyone who's interested. TL;DR there's a fairly significant correlation with white collar work and corrective lenses. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5382686/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5382686/ looks like an interesting, more robust study on statistical correlations between Myopia and IQ, but I haven't read the whole thing yet