Attractive Women Get Fewer Callbacks: What the 5,312 CV Photo Study Actually Found

Most beauty research tells a simple story: attractive people are rated as smarter, kinder and more capable, and they earn more. One field experiment found an exception that every woman choosing a headshot should know about.

The short answer

Bradley Ruffle and Ze'ev Shtudiner sent pairs of otherwise identical CVs to real job ads. One CV in each pair had a photo of an attractive or a plain looking candidate; the other had no photo. They then counted who was invited to interview. The paper was published in Management Science in 2015 under the title "Are Good-Looking People More Employable?".

Figures from the working paper version (SSRN 1705244). Overall callback rate across all CVs: 14.5%.

For men, beauty paid: an attractive man needed about five CVs to get one response, a plain looking man about eleven. For women, beauty did not pay. The CV with no photo did best, and the attractive photo did worst.

How the experiment worked

• 5,312 CVs went to 2,656 advertised openings in Israel, two per job: one with a photo, one identical CV without.
• The photos came from student volunteers at Ben-Gurion University. From hundreds of submissions the authors kept 161 usable photos (78 men, 83 women), then a panel of eight judges, four men and four women, rated each on attractiveness from 1 to 9. The most and least attractive were used.
• The jobs spread across many fields; no field received more than 18% of the CVs. About 27% of the openings involved dealing with the public, the rest were office roles.
• A callback meant any email or phone call inviting the candidate to the next stage.

Because each photo CV was paired with an identical CV with no photo sent to the same job, the comparison is clean: the only thing that differed was the picture.

Who did the screening changed everything

The most telling result came from splitting the jobs by who screened the CVs.

Agencies treated attractive and plain women about the same. When the company that would actually employ the person did the screening, attractive women were the only group singled out: their callback rate was about six points lower than plain women and women with no photo.

Why it happened: the authors' explanation, and its limits

The authors tested several explanations and argue for one: jealousy. In their follow up survey, the person who screened CVs was a woman in 24 of 25 companies, mostly in their twenties, and 93% of the people who called candidates back were women. The authors suggest that screeners who would work alongside the new hire penalised attractive female candidates.

Treat that explanation with care:

• It is an inference, not something the study observed directly.
• The data come from one country, at one time, using student photos.
• In many countries, including the US and the UK, CVs normally carry no photo at all, so the setting is different. See our guides to photos on US resumes and photos on UK CVs.
• In countries where a CV photo is expected, such as Germany, the photo question is live every time you apply. Our German CV photo guide covers the norms.

What the study does show, without needing any explanation, is that a woman's photo can lower her callback rate below having no photo at all, and that the most attractive version was the one that did worst.

What this means for your headshot

The study used real, unretouched photos of real students. It says nothing directly about AI. But it does say something important about a habit many AI tools have: making women look more glamorous than they are.

Look at the two photos above. They show the same fictional woman. The first keeps her freckles, her real skin and her own hair. The second is what a beauty filter does: smoothed skin, contour, lashes, a blowout. If glamour can cost a woman callbacks, the second photo is a risk with no upside, and it also fails the simplest test of all, which is whether the interviewer recognises you when you walk in.

Practical rules that follow:

1. Aim for competent, not glamorous. Daytime makeup, the hair you wear to work, a solid top, a natural smile.
2. Keep your real skin. Freckles, lines and texture make the photo read as a photo. Smoothing makes it read as a filter.
3. Check whether a photo is expected at all. In the US and UK, leave it off the CV and put it on LinkedIn. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and much of continental Europe and Asia, use one, and make it a natural one.
4. Use the same natural photo everywhere. Consistency between CV, LinkedIn and the person who walks into the room builds trust.

How this fits with other research on faces and hiring

Together they point the same way: the photo is judged fast, and the judgment carries bias that differs by gender and age. A headshot cannot fix bias, but it can avoid feeding it. A natural, well lit, competent photo gives the reader the least to react to besides you. For the age side of this, read our guide to headshots for women over 50.

The bottom line

In the best known field test of CV photos, attractive women got fewer callbacks than women with no photo, while attractive men got the most. The authors blame jealousy among screeners; that is debatable, the numbers are not. For your headshot the takeaway is practical: look like the competent version of yourself, keep your real skin and features, and skip any tool or retoucher that turns you into someone more glamorous.

FAQ

Do attractive women really get fewer job interviews? In Ruffle and Shtudiner's field experiment, yes: women with an attractive photo on their CV got callbacks 12.8% of the time, against 16.6% for the same CV with no photo. The effect was strongest when the hiring company screened CVs itself, where attractive women fell to 9.2%.

Where was the CV photo study done? In Israel, where including a photo on a CV is neither required nor unusual. The authors sent 5,312 CVs to 2,656 real job advertisements across many fields.

Did attractive men get more callbacks? Yes. Attractive men had the highest callback rate of any group at 19.7%, nearly 50% higher than men with no photo (13.7%) and more than twice the rate for plain looking men (9.2%).

Why did attractive women get fewer callbacks? The authors argue the most likely reason is jealousy: in their survey the CV screener was a woman in 24 of 25 companies. This is their interpretation, not something the study measured directly, and other explanations are possible.

Should I put a photo on my CV? It depends on the country. In the US and UK, CVs normally have no photo. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and many other countries a photo is common. Where you use one, make it natural and professional rather than glamorous.

Does this mean I should look less attractive in my headshot? No. It means you should look like yourself on a good working day. The study suggests glamour can hurt women, not that looking good does. A natural, well lit, competent photo avoids the risk.

Was the study published in a peer reviewed journal? Yes. It appeared in Management Science, volume 61, issue 8, in 2015. The figures on this page come from the earlier working paper, which is freely available on SSRN.