Picture Out Of The Frame

A few months ago, Moon Jae-in, the President of South Korea, made an unusual announcement.

- Gautam Brahma

He stated that his government will soon be implementing 'blind hiring' for all public sector jobs. And, he also made an appeal to the private sector to do the same. What is 'blind hiring'? President Moon clarified that applicants for public sector jobs would no longer be required to divulge personal information such as place of stay, parents' job, and physical state on the application form. Above all, they would not be required to share their photographs. He also stated that he in fact was acting to prevent hiring discrimination against people who looked different, or came from certain family backgrounds and geographical locations.

South Korea has often been written about for the extreme importance that has been attached to photographs in job applications. In fact, a veritable industry has come into being to help job applicants arrange the best photographs of themselves. So much so, that Al Jazeera, an international news channel, carried a feature on such service providers. Often, photographs are provided with an extensive touch up to make the applicant look more attractive than he or she is in real life. In some cases, job aspirants have known to submit themselves to cosmetic surgery to enhance/beautify their physical appearance. Apparently, HR managers in that country feel confident in inferring competence from physical appearance. This was borne out in a survey conducted in 2016 by the job portal Saramin. 93% of all companies required photographs from job applicants, around 50% of the HR managers said that they had rejected candidates on the basis of their photographs, and 34% of these managers admitted to having hired people on the basis of their looks, even if their resumes did not meet the requirements. And, all the above are indeed worrying.