In issues relating to courtship, handsome men have an upper hand - but a new study indicates desirable features might hurt guys' careers.

And yes, it's a jealousy thing.

"A new study out of the University College London finds good looks can keep a male from climbing the career ladder because male colleagues are less likely to promote rivals they consider more handsome than themselves," Arden Dier wrote for Newser.

Researchers based the findings on four experiments that included 870 volunteers, Today reported. The experiments put the participants in scenarios where they were supposed to employ someone for a job and had more than one candidate to choose from.

The resumes they looked at portrayed candidates "with almost identical skill sets and qualifications, but the photographs that accompanied them were different," Today's piece read.

Victoria Ward noted for The Telegraph that in jobs involving team performance, participants picked good-looking men. However, in roles requiring individual talent, guys who resembled the likes of George Clooney and "Mad Men's" Don Draper were "perceived as a threat to the workplace."

Contrary to popular belief, the study found participants didn't tie women's looks to competence, The Telegraph reported.

Lead researcher and UCL professor Dr. Sun Young Lee said the findings show the fine line employees walk when hiring: They want quality candidates - but not newcomers who may "show them up," Ward wrote for The Telegraph.

A UCL release on the study stated how that shows workplaces might want to reconsider their hiring processes.

"Awareness that hiring is affected by potential work relationships and stereotyping tendencies can help organizations improve their selection processes," the release quoted Lee as saying. "For example, engaging external representatives may improve selection outcomes as outsiders are likely to provide fairer outputs. Also, if organizations make managers more accountable for their decisions, they'll be less motivated to pursue self-interests at the expense of the company."

The bottom line: "(N)eutral, outside" recruitment companies should do the hiring to make sure skill - not whether leadership views applicants as a threat - helps workers advance on the career ladder, the Daily Mail wrote.

The Mail noted some scoffed when actor Rob Lowe told The New York Times that good looks made furthering his career tough.

"There's this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people, that they can't be in pain or they can't have rough lives or be deep or interesting," The Times quoted Lowe as saying.

The UCL's findings, however, show Lowe might've been onto something.