Looks could kill your chances of landing a job

The growing practice of attaching candidate photos to CVs is leading to more discrimination as employers increasingly judge jobseekers on how they look.

The practice, which is considered the norm in mainland Europe, is rapidly spreading across the UK recruitment industry, according to Jonny Cainer, managing director at the Marketing Professionals recruitment agency.

"No matter how liberal our society has become, the fact remains that people are influenced by people's looks," he said.

"Discrimination works both ways. Employers can be resistant to a perfectly good candidate because of their age, sex, race or simply even their 'look'. Women can be discriminated against because they are perceived as too pretty to take on a heavyweight position or not good looking enough to represent the company."

Cainer said that by leaving photos off during the selection process, those candidates that do get shortlisted for interview have got there based entirely on merit.