The effects of avatar appearance on interviewer ratings in virtual employment interviews

It is increasingly common for people engaging in computer–mediated interactions to be accompanied by a digital avatar that represents them. Little is known, however, about how these avatars influence others’ impressions. We examine this question in the context of employment interviews. It is well known that attractive job candidates are afforded an advantage in traditional face-to-face job interviews. We investigate whether raters evaluating computer–mediated interviews will follow a similar pattern when a digital avatar represents the candidate. To investigate this question, we asked 374 raters to view an interview transcript that was accompanied by either a male or female avatar, applying for either a male or female gender-typed job. We found that candidates with more attractive avatars received more favorable interview ratings, regardless of job gender type. These findings support the notion that the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype influences interview ratings even in computer-mediated interviews; raters automatically apply the same heuristics to digital and non-digital faces.

► We investigate the impact of avatars’ attractiveness on online employment interview ratings. ► Candidates with more attractive avatars received more favorable interview ratings. ► The gender type of the job did not influence the magnitude of the bias towards attractive avatars. ► The “what is beautiful is good” stereotype appears to hold in online interviews.