As our la­test guest in our Re­se­arch Se­mi­nar Se­ries, we wel­co­med Lan Luo from the Mar­shall School of Busi­ness, Uni­ver­si­ty of Sou­thern Ca­li­for­nia (US). She shared her re­cent work on the role of pro­fi­le pic­tu­res in on­line job mar­kets.

In on­line job mar­kets em­ploy­ers hire free­lan­cers based on their per­cei­ved fit for the job. In her joint work toge­ther with Isam­ar Tro­co­so from Har­vard busi­ness School (US), Lan shows that this per­cep­ti­on of job fit is in­flu­en­ced by the cha­rac­te­ris­tics of the free­lan­cer’s pro­fi­le pic­tu­re. In ad­di­ti­on to the well-​known ef­fects of de­mo­gra­phics and be­au­ty, it tur­ned out that pro­fi­le pic­tu­res that look the part (i.e., have a job-​suited ap­pearan­ce) have a si­gni­fi­cant im­pact on hi­ring out­co­mes. Once a can­di­da­te made it th­rough the con­side­ra­ti­on stage to the choice stage of the decision-​making pro­cess, a pro­fi­le pic­tu­re that looks the part can serve as a de­cis­i­ve fac­tor. Even though a pro­fi­le pic­tu­re that looks the part does not imply hig­her abi­li­ties, it can out­shi­ne dif­fe­ren­ces to the other con­side­red can­di­da­tes in ra­tings or the as­king price. In a se­cond study, Lan found that a more dia­gnostic re­pu­ta­ti­on sys­tem and plat­form re­com­men­da­ti­ons can help to mi­ti­ga­te the ef­fects of pro­fi­le pic­tu­res.

Thank you, Lan, for your visit and sharing your work with us!