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Generally speaking, when it comes to career success, experience, abilities and

confidence are always the main attributes. These attributes are clearly seen at successful

people like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and so on, we will just be

easily blown away by their charisma and the groundbreaking achievements. We all know that

their success comes with their true qualities, instead of physical appeal. However, physicalattractiveness also plays another important factor in ones career. Its not the most crucia l one,

but cant be overlooked.

Physically attractive people have higher advantage at building their own career. There

are some phenomena which prompt us to believe that:

1. Physical attractiveness bias at hiring2. Physically attractive person has average higher income.

TRANSITION: This is true. It happens not only at filming and modeling career, but the

common workplace too.

From Jeffrey Mitchellsbackground in industrial psychology, a phenomena known as

the Halo Effect, comes into play frequently in the professional realm. First impressions are

often established in 30 seconds or less, and these perceptions can be quite strong. If an

interviewer is attracted to the person they are speaking with, the interviewer will tend to find

reasons that this person is a good fit for the job. Bad answers will be explained away because

of the interviewers bias in hiring. Promotions often depend upon the perception in the office

and physical appearance is one thing that will always factor into that perception.

As stated in the book Weight Halo Effect, halo effect is a cognitive bias in whichone's judgments of a persons character can be influenced by one's overall impression of him

or her.

NEWSWEEK conducted an online survey of 202 corporate hiring managers, from

human-resource employees to senior-level vice presidents, as well as a telephone survey of a

nationally representative sample of 964 members of the public. When it comes to getting

hired in the first place, 57 percent of managers believe an unattractive (but qualified) job

candidate will have a harder time getting hired; 68 percent believe that, once hired, looks will

continue to affect the way managers rate job performance. Its a view thats reinforced among

survey respondents from the general public, a third of whom are either retired or looking for

work themselves: 63 percent said being physically attractive is beneficial to men who are

looking for work, and 72 percent said it was an advantage for women.

Asked to rate nine character attributes from one to 10 (with 10 being the most

important), looks came in third (with a mean score of 7.1), below experience (8.9) and

confidence (8.5), but above where a candidate went to school (6.8) and a sense of humor (6.7).

Does that mean candidates should throw away their college funds on a nose job? Probably

not. But it does show that not all recruiters are looking for an Ivy League diploma.

TRANSITION: On top of that, physically attractive people have higher average income

compared to the not attractive one. This is another findings that will surprise u, even myself.

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While many believe that a high income doesnt come with a good look. However, a

plethora of studies seem to deny this conventional perception.

Daniel Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas in Austin,measures out the benefits in his book, "Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More

Successful." According to his research, attractive people are likely to earn an average of 3%

to 4% more than a person with below-average looks. That adds up to $230,000 more over a

lifetime for the typical good-looking person, Dr. Hamermesh estimates. Even an average-

looking worker is likely to make $140,000 more over a lifetime than an ugly worker.

Furthermore, Daniel Hamermesh, and economics Ph.D. at Yale, conducted a study

known as Beauty in the Labor Market and discovered that people with above average looks

typically received premiums in pay of 5% or more and below average looks suffered a salary

penalty of up to 9%.

What about the argument that better-looking people tend to sell more products or

attract more new customers? Mr. Hamermesh: Yes, researchshows that happens. Better-

looking workers bring in more for the employers, just as a more intelligent worker will.

Paying them more is still a form of discrimination, but their attractiveness also tends to raise

their productivity. That's what makes it so difficult. I would argue that this is discrimination.

But others would argue that it's simply an indulgence of people's tastes and preferences.

TRANSITION: I think these facts have just surprised you. You never know how beneficial a

good look is to yourself if we dont read those studies.

Well, various researches have shown the phenomena which are physical attractiveness

bias at hiring and the higher average income amongst them.

For those of us who are beauty-challenged, what about plastic surgery? Research suggests it

isn't a good investment. Looks can be altered by clothing, cosmetics and other short-term

investments. Surgery pays back less than $1 for every $1 spent. But it might make you feel

better.