Making Those Who Cannot See Look Best: Effects of Visual Resume Formatting on Ratings of Job Applicants With Blindness Katie Wang Rice University Laura G. Barron University of Wisconsin, Stout Michelle R. Hebl Rice University Objective: Although general attitudes toward individuals with disabilities are often positive, these perceptions do not always lead to equal footing in the hiring process. This study examined stereotypes of job applicants perceived to be blind and the role of applicant blindness in hireability ratings made by human resource managers. Specifically, we highlighted a unique challenge for individuals who cannot see: the visual formatting of resumes. Design: Human resource managers (N = 249) evaluated the visually formatted or unformatted resumes of hypothetical job applicants who were portrayed as blind or sighted and rated applicant hireability and personality characteristics. Results: Although applicants perceived to be blind were perceived as more conscientious and agreeable by human resource managers, these positive evaluations did not translate into favorable hireability evaluations. Conclusion: Because human resource managers severely penalize applicants who do not attend to visual, nonfunctional resume presentation, applicants who cannot see are apt to find themselves disadvantaged in the hiring process. The implications of these findings for organizations, job seekers, and rehabilitation professionals are discussed. Keywords: disability, blindness, bias, discrimination, applicant Historically, individuals with disabilities always have been an underrepresented group in the workforce. Although the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 has significantly facilitated the inclusion of individuals with disabilities in the workplace, the unemployment rate is still nearly twice as high among individuals with disabilities than among the general population (Stone & Colella, 1996). Unfortunately, people with disabilities, especially those with blindness, have received very little attention in the workplace literature. The present study, therefore, aimed to con- tribute to this limited knowledge base by investigating the question of how individuals with blindness are perceived by prospective employers and the role that visual presentation of their credentials plays in initial evaluations of hireability. How Do Employers Evaluate Persons Perceived To Be Blind? Although research that specifically addresses the perceptions of visually impaired individuals is lacking, the stigmatization litera- ture has provided substantial evidence regarding attitudes toward job applicants with other disabilities, suggesting that such percep- tions are typically ambivalent. On the one hand, empirical evi- dence consistent with the “norm-to-be-kind” hypothesis supports the idea that individuals with blindness might receive more posi- tive hireability evaluations than their sighted counterparts. Defined as the social pressure to act charitably toward those less fortunate (Hastorf, Northcraft, & Picciatto, 1979), the norm-to be-kind gov- erns many aspects of behavior toward people with disabilities. For example, in the laboratory, nondisabled participants consistently provide unrealistic positive feedback in response to the below- average performance of individuals with physical disabilities (Has- torf et al., 1979; Miller & Werner, 2005). Similarly, hypothetical job applicants with physical disabilities are rated higher in consci- entiousness and agreeableness, as well as activity and potency relative to matched nondisabled applicants (Bell & Klein, 2001; Louvet, 2007). On the other hand, further evidence challenges this straightfor- ward proposition. Managers tend to hold unfounded negative ex- pectations about the skills of workers with disabilities as well as their future performance (Jones, 1997; Ren, Paetzold, & Colella, 2008; Stone & Colella, 1996). Hence, although people may praise individuals with disabilities, such targets are less likely than a nondisabled target to be chosen as a partner on an assigned task even after previous task performance between targets with and without disabilities has been equated (Colella, DeNisi, & Varma, 1998). Similarly, although job applicants with disabilities are rated more highly than matched nondisabled applicants on many per- sonal characteristics, applicants with disabilities are rated as less Katie Wang and Michelle R. Hebl, Department of Psychology, Rice University; Laura G. Barron, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Stout. Katie Wang is now at the Department of Psychology, Yale University. Katie Wang and Laura G. Barron contributed equally to this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michelle R. Hebl, PhD, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, MS 205, Houston, TX 77005. E-mail: hebl@rice.edu Rehabilitation Psychology 2010, Vol. 55, No. 1, 68 –73 © 2010 American Psychological Association 0090-5550/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0018546 68