Are ‘professional appearance’ standards still relevant? How about legal?

A recent study has identified "inappropriate or unprofessional appearance" as the top reason for bias in hiring decisions.

According to Beth Hirsh, professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia, hiring – or not hiring – a candidate based on their personal presentation is technically legal, but the water becomes murky once you look beneath the surface.

“On face value, looking unprofessional or one's presentation of self, is completely legal in terms of being a selection criteria for employers. If they don't believe someone is presented in a professional manner, then that may be an indication to them that they aren't going to perform well on the job,” Hirsh says.

“The grey area in the law comes in when you have appearance or presumptions of professionalism lining up with protected statuses that are illegal to make decisions based on.”

Examples of hiring decisions based on protected statuses can include a woman wearing a hijab being rejected for a job requiring headwear, she says, or a restaurant requiring female wait staff to dress in skirts or other “feminine” clothing.

Professionalism appearance and social fit

The study, which surveyed 680 professional interviewers across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, found that appearance is often viewed as a proxy for an applicant's seriousness about a role.

Although such assumptions often disregard medical conditions, cultural differences, or economic barriers, many of the study’s participants equated a polished, traditional look with professionalism and work ethic.

This reliance on first impressions for decision-making overlaps with the idea of “hiring for fit”, another area that is ripe for biased hiring, says Hirsh.

“That's something that employers should be aware of, that when you assess based on the sort of ‘gut feeling’ of fit, you're inviting your biases and inviting your assessments, your first impressions, to come into play, whereas if you assess individuals based on their technical skills or based on their knowledge of a field or based on their educational background or whatever it is, then you're sticking more closely to job qualifications.”

Who is most likely to make biased hiring decisions?

The study also identified several traits of interviewers who are more likely to be influenced by factors such as professional appearance, with “agreeableness” and “social dominance orientation” being the most impactful.

 “People that are less cooperative, less interpersonally kind, more likely to challenge others and prioritize self interests,” explains co-author Timothy Wingate, assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resources management at the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Younger interviewers are also more susceptible to make biased hiring decisions because of these traits, as well as those more politically conservative.

“We're identifying the traits of interviewers that predispose them toward bias in general, because there's previous research that shows that there may be personality profiles, or traits of people, then that makes them more predisposed toward bias,” says Wingate.

“What that research had found is that people low on a trait called agreeableness are more likely to be biased, to express a bias in general.”

Conversely, interviewers who are more agreeable or have higher quotients of “intellect/imagination” are less prone to making such biased decisions, the study found.

When a professional appearance requirement is bona fide

The study reveals that assumptions about an applicant’s suitability based on how they dress or present themselves persist, even when unrelated to job performance.

However, there are instances where expectations of standards of professionalism or appearance are admissible, if the employer can demonstrate a bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR).

“If professionalism or a certain appearance was a bona fide occupational requirement, and the employer could demonstrate that, then selection based on that appearance or that professionalism requirement would be legal,” says Hirsh.

Tribunals and courts have various interpretations of the definition of “reasonable” in such cases, she says; for example, employers rejecting applicants wearing head coverings due to uniform requirements have been found liable due to “religious exception”; similarly, courts have found requirements around “sexualized” uniforms for women in hospitality roles to be non-enforceable.

“There's lots of room for interpretation around this issue of appearance, and lots of hiring cases that deal with gender and deal with race, ethnicity and disability do challenge standards about appearance,” Hirsh says.

“There's more openness in terms of how to dress, how to carry oneself on the job, how to present oneself. There's certainly more openness for everybody, but I think those of marginalized status groups, there still is more scrutiny placed on them with regard to appearance and dress and standards of professionalism.”

Are ‘professional appearance’ standards still relevant?

While traditional standards of professional appearance may have been relaxed in recent years, they aren’t universal.

“There's more openness in terms of how to dress, how to carry oneself on the job, how to present oneself,” Hirsh says. “There's certainly more openness for everybody, but I think those of marginalized status groups, there still is more scrutiny placed on them with regard to appearance and dress and standards of professionalism.”

As the study points out, the idea of "professionalism" in appearance is inherently subjective and influenced by cultural norms, industry expectations, and personal preferences. What is deemed appropriate in one workplace might be viewed as unacceptable in another.

Those standards don’t hold equally true for everyone, especially during the hiring process.

“First impression is still relevant. And I think that for many groups, standards are different, so appearance is always going to be gendered and sexualized and racialized – one's appearance is wrapped up in all those status categories,” says Hirsh.

“So, like many other employment situations, certain groups are held to different standards than others. So I think that for employers, it's important to notice that these standards we might hold, say, a professional white man to in terms of dress may be different than the standards we hold the professional white woman or the standards that we would hold a Black man or an Indigenous woman to.”

Leave personal information out of it

The report suggests conducting job analyses prior to posting job vacancies; as Wingate explains, analysis of a position should not only include what qualifications are required, but also what information is off limits.

This prevents unnecessary opportunities for bias.

“It seems like most of the risk of bias is coming about through natural parts of the selection process, so people just including information that could be potentially biasing in their application materials, or bringing up job irrelevant information on their own in the interview, without the interviewer asking them for that information,” Wingate says.

“One thing that we suggest is asking applicants not to bring up information that's not relevant to the job in the interview process.”

Plus, if there are high-risk traits for a particular role, such as a criminal history for a security-based role, Wingate stresses the effectiveness of front-loading job postings with that information.

“You'd want to specify that very clearly up front in the hiring process before applications start to come in, so that hiring staff don't have to think about the relevance of these things,” he adds.

“That decision is already made consciously beforehand, and so you're not potentially biased against any individual applicant. The decision is based on the true requirements of the job.”

Implications for HR: structured interviews to challenge appearance bias

The study points out that structured interview formats aren’t always effective in eliminating bias; even in structured settings, biases persist when interviewers hold firm beliefs about appearance standards.

The manner of training hiring managers about bias and interviewing is a key factor, says Hirsh. Rather than attempting to teach managers about bias, HR should instead focus on breaking the link between bias and hiring outcomes.

“Training is tricky. In terms of the empirical evidence around training, most studies of diversity training or hiring training around diversity show that it has very minimal effects, and in many cases, can backfire,” she says.

“Often people interpret it as an attack on them, that, ‘Oh, you're biased.’ And if you simply discuss bias, generally, you don't provide the avenues for individuals to translate strategies into action. But if you provide the actual strategies, then you help those individuals enact the strategies that are going to minimize bias.”

To minimize appearance and other biases during job interviews, Hirsh suggests the following strategies:

• Ask everyone the same questions: Stick to formal criteria rather than informal, individualized banter.
• Conduct interviews in formal venues rather than informal meetings.
• Have multiple individuals conduct the interview, to “keep each other in check.”
• Ask questions that relate to relevant skills and tasks they have completed in the past or will perform as part of their new role.
• Ask questions around personality or character that are in direct relation to how they would enable the candidate to perform their job.

To assist with this process, the report suggests conducting job analyses prior to posting job vacancies.

“So, training interviewers how to conduct interviews in ways that are standardized, that are formalized, that stick to criteria, that stick to qualifications, stick to tasks, where they're checked by others, that is the sort of training that I think the literature supports is most effective, rather than training individuals about their biases,” Hirsh says.

Since direct observation was found to be a major source of bias, the study also suggests HR departments consider implementing blind resume reviews.