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I've been a lurker here for months. I'm at 4 months now, just about. My last trim was at Christmas, and it was a close shave. Anyway, it's getting a bit long now, about 3/4 to the base of my ear. Have any of you gentlemen found that there is any kind of stigma attached to long haired men getting new jobs?
It depends on the job. They don't care where I work, as long as you're neat.
There is no problem at my workplace.
I think the rule of thumb is you dress tidily it should not be a problem but there is always one boss with one brain cell that can't cope with that!
Cheers,
John.B
I think it's hard to ever really know for sure. I suspect it may take longer to find a job than someone else with the same qualifications, whereas OTOH getting laid off in times like these may happen sooner, but none of this is really provable in most cases.
There are certain specific employers who we know are anti-long hair, e.g. UPS, and others we know are strictly unbiassed about it, e.g. Walmart, but neither of those would be high on my list to begin with.
Generally, there are seldom any problems about hair for those who work in IT, and that's hardly the worst paid sector of the economy. OTOH, IBM used to not like long hair in the past, but when they bought Lotus most of those guys already had long hair, so I don't know what they are like now.
Government jobs also don't normally discriminate against long hair, and that seems to hold true both in the US and the UK, which are the only countries I have experience of. That surprises people who think of the government as stuffy. They are stuffy in plenty of ways, and always generous with the red tape, but they are usually against discrimination of all kinds, which is the key. The question is whether you can stand working for a government department without going crazy.
FWIW, I work in a law firm. I'm a patent agent. In fact, in one previous law firm where I used to work, one of the new lawyers was mortified to discover me working there, because he cut his hair before applying for the job! Literally, if he had known that someone like me worked there he wouldn't have cut his hair. In fact, very few lawyers have long hair, but lawyers are very leery about failing to hire someone for any reason that has the ghost of a chance of ever being the basis for a law suit against them. For this reason I don't think long hair is a big barrier in the law, as long as you realise you are going to be the only one there.
The biggest problem areas are probably anything to do with finance, accounting, banking, etc. Even then, I have seen long haired bank tellers, but I have heard that their chances to progress further may not be so hot.
Bank tellers?
I have a friend who has super-long hair who used to be a bank teller; he would wear it in a ponytail and wear his coat over it (he has straight, thin hair, kind of like the rest of him, so he could do it effectively).
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Not really much else to add to what you've said except that some employers do have sense enough to realize long hair is just that, long hair, not a negative thing. Good luck with your job.
MB