This is what men think when you wear makeup to a job interview

Last month, we heard the very bummer news that if you don’t wear makeup to work, you’ll be paid less. Now, it turns out that getting a job could hinge on whether or not you wore makeup to the job interview, and it’s giving us a bad taste in our mouths.

A new study by researchers at the University of Sterling in Scotland found that wearing makeup can influence your interviewer’s opinion of you. . . and that opinion depends on whether the interviewer is male or female.

“While both sexes agree that women with makeup look more attractive when it comes to ‘high status,’ it really depends on who is looking,” Dr. Viktoria Mileva, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the university, told ScienceDaily.

According to Dr. Mileva, “high-status” can be obtained through prestige or dominance:

“Either you are dominant, which means you are happy using forcefulness or manipulation to make people follow you. Alternatively, you can gain high status by prestige; by having positive merits and qualities that make other want to follow you.”

Naturally, prestige sounds like the better option. But no matter your accomplishments, your great ideas, or  your ability to be a team player, your makeup can unfortunately have a big role in first impressions. “Men think women with make-up are more ‘prestigious’, while women think women with make-up are more dominant,” Dr. Mileva said.

So why is it that women view made-up women to be “dominant” instead of “prestigious”? Dr. Mileva said it “might be related to jealousy and threat potential”:

“We did some follow-up studies as to why women might feel that women with makeup are perceived as more dominant, and it looks like it might be related to jealousy and threat potential — women rating women with make-up said they would be more jealous of them, thought they were more promiscuous, and would be more attractive to men than their non-makeup-wearing counterparts.”

Dr. Mileva suggested trying to find out whether your interviewer will be a man or a woman as a way to know how to get ready in the morning. We, however, suggest that you style your beauty routine however you darn well please — then totally rock that job interview. You got this!