The Effect of Gender Expectations and Physical Attractiveness on Discussion of Weakness in Online Professional Recommendations

In the current professional environment, recruiters are using online professional networks at an increasing rate to find qualified candidates for job openings. Online professional recommendations on these sites can provide valuable information; however, because of the medium by which they are provided, their effectiveness may suffer from lower levels of trust. We theoretically conjecture why including a discussion of a candidate’s weakness (termed, scope of improvement) can lead to a higher likelihood of a recruiter being willing to interview a candidate. We theorize that the effect of scope of improvement will depend on the nature of the weakness discussed and the physical attractiveness of the candidate, which is only relevant in an online context where that information is known. Analysis of the data we collected from industry professionals indicates that for average candidates, scope of improvement has a positive effect when the scope discussed does not counter expectations derived from common gender stereotypes (referred to as gender-expected scope), and a negative effect when it does. For attractive candidates, any discussion of scope has a negative effect. A theoretical contribution is our explaining the process of how different types of scope effect the likelihood of interview across different levels of attractiveness. Another theoretical contribution was the counterfactual performed in a second study to show how reinforcement of gender-expected strengths can attenuate the penalty of gender-expected scope for attractive candidates. Findings indicate that the penalty observed for attractive candidates can be avoided by reinforcing traits commonly associated with their gender. Data for both studies were collected from industry professionals involved in the hiring process, allowing us to offer practical guidelines to users of online professional networks.