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On the subject of discrimination against longhaired men, if you had been looking for a job for over 6 months and finally got one, and that job was trying to force you to cut your hair, would you (A.) keep your hair and quit when another job may not come along or (B.) cut your hair for the sake of keeping food on the table? My dilema is as my locks lenghthen, I seem to be getting tuned away from many potential employers and I'm convinced it has to do with my longer hair. Funny thing is too, when you do get hired on at some coustomer service job, you need to take classes on how to treat the shoppers the same way no matter how they look, and be accepting of all the good folks that come by, but then they won't hire me or do hire me and tell me I need to get a hair cut because the shoppers won't accept me unless I look a certain (I/E short haired)or act a certain way. Awesome double standard huh???
hahahaha
Good point!
Basically i've been through what you mentioned. Last year I had my hair grown out for like a year (6 inches long), and found a job at Mcdonalds. In the interviews and everything they never said anything about my gelled back, neat hair. but on the first shift, they sed "shave it by 2morow or were going to hav trouble". Obviously it was my first job so I wanted to make money and have the experience, so the hair went. So did the beard. I couldnt even recognize myself for the whole summer. When my hair barely grew 1cm, the manager told me "listen cut ur hair again". by this time i got so fed up i just quit. it was great. it's been growing since, and isn't so far from 6 inches again!
So basically i really understand your dilemma.
My mum told me to look for a job this year, but im turning down all d waiter vacancies. I'm not changing my appearance for a temperory part-time job!! No way! Neither for a long term full-time job either. I just choose which jobs to apply for or not. Everyone i know laughs that i'm so picky, but i don't care. As long as the hair stays, really :)
Shawn
Shaving it is a little extreme. :-/ I think your manager had control issues.
Maybe it was a Mcdonald's on the base in Guantanamo?
Well, to be fair, it was a food production facility and, hairnet not withstanding, finding a hair in one's food may be gross, but finding a long curly hair is even worse.
Hope all works out for you, Shawn!
Shawn (Mr.Crow)
Again.. To be fair, maybe women in food service should shave their heads too?? We all know that isn't going to happen so it comes down to long hair on men just isn't socially acceptable in most settings.. With the U.S. becoming more "politically correct" regarding various discriminitory issues today, it's only a matter of time before long hair on men becomes acceptable.. It takes people making the right amount of "noise" about it in the right places.. That is part of politics.. I'm grateful for being self-employed and not having to deal with any long hair issues!
That's my $.02
Tom
My Website
I agree with Tom, but when else does one get to insinuate the meaning of a curly hair in one's food.
Cheers!
Shawn
I think using your hair as a reason for not getting a job is just an excuse. It could be there were more qualified applicants or that there is something else about you that they didn't like. Unless they specifically say it's the hair, I would assume it was something else. I really don't think people are that external that they wouldn't hire someone solely based on the length of their hair. It's just as ridiculous as when people say, they don't get a job because they are black, when it's really that they just aren't the most qualified. In your situation I wouldn't cut your hair. I would try to be as polite and neat at interviews and make yourself the best candidate for the job, then they have to overlook the long hair if it would matter to them. I've never had any problems with my hair and I always wear it down when working.
I don't know what I would do, right now nothing is stopping me from being a long hair. When you're in that position you'll never know what you will do.
But I didn't let my hair grow although I wanted it because of my job at the burger king. The rules are there no beard and short hair so I never thought about long hair after my last try 10 years ago. I didn't thought it was possible.
But a while ago they did hire someone with long hair so that was a big motivation to also let my hair grow.
My management didn't complain yet and when they do I can say that my college also has long hair.
I've sometimes had the idea of applying for a job at a few random places just to see if my skill set outweighed my hair and beard. I have a pretty impressive skill set in I.T. backed with experience and excellent customer service.
I'd agree that "customer service" is tops. When I had my boss's clients saying they wanted me to handle their jobs, and some clients saying they'd go elsewhere if I didn't, that put an end to any thoughts of commenting on my appearance. The clients' comments also did not bode so well for the engineers they would have had foisted upon them, despite those engineers' having the corporate "look".
Yes, nothing speaks so loudly in your favor as positive comments from clients!
Bill
It's unfortunate that companies are thet way but they are. i overcame that but only because I had lots of experience that they wanted very badly.
You do need to put food on the table and pay your bills but don't get discouraged too quick even short haired people have a hard time finding a job in the current market. As the economy pluges into recession finding a job will be even more difficult so I would say if you have to cut it to eat then in the short term do that. At some point you may have the chance to grow it out again.
Good luck
Kevin
I'm a guy who went from deli clerk to asst. closing manager in a month at my last job, however, most companies rules state that men must have short hair, so it's not a qualification issue, and several have said, "you will need to cut your hair if you are employed here."
Hey Corvette, double standard indeed! Of course you need to put food on the table and that is the bottom line. It's too bad that folks are judged so much on irrelevant physical characteristics. Would be interesting if you could find out the real reasons for job turndowns. Keep us posted and best of luck to you.
Cheers,
Max
The solution is obvious. Become self employed. Then you only
have to answer to the boss (read: you)
I've never had an employer tell me that I had to cut my hair, and I wouldn't if they asked, and I work in a law firm.
IMHO you are more likely to run into problems if the job requires few or no qualifications but somehow "deals with the public".
At the other extreme, if your job requires degrees, licences and diplomas, and the client's come by less than once a year, then you will never need to cut your hair.
You need to arrange your life to be working in something more like the latter type of job and less like the former. Even the non-academic can learn a trade if they are prepared to put in the effort, i.e. you don't have to become a brain surgeon, a plumber is still a licenced profession, at least around here.
If you can earn a licence to do something that you can do on your own, then so much the better, although I work for someone else because I make a poor businessman.
Just my 'two cents', as they say in these parts.