Are you looking for employment and wondering why you just cannot land the ideal job? If you have looked at your resume and it looks good, you are good with doing the interview, etc and you cannot figure out why the offers are not coming in, the reason could be a visible tattoo.
While getting that tattoo on your forearm was once a good idea, maybe it is costing you the job that you want. The world today states that tattoos are okay but the corporate world has stayed in its ways of not liking their people having tattoos plastered all over their body. People do not like their employees who deal with customers or clients to be flashing some ink, even if it looks cool and was well done. Some hiring managers simply do not want to take the risk of hiring someone with visible tattoos.
There are plenty of hiring managers who do not care about tattoos, however, the companies they work for do care. From what has been seen and heard from corporations is that there is a decent split among companies between not caring about tattoos and definitely caring; the companies that do not care are outnumbered by the ones that do. The companies that do care have very negative attitudes towards employees having visible ink.Some have even encouraged candidates to get tattoo removal .
Several hiring managers have said, “Tattoos absolutely have a negative impact on a candidate’s chances of getting hired for a lot of companies. The reasoning behind the decision is that we [companies] know that our customers and clients often view tattoos as something to be frowned upon. While tattoos are regarded as more normal in the general public, they have not made such strides in the corporate sector.”
It has also been said by hiring managers that people who get tattoos need to plan ahead and get their tattoos in places that can be hidden by collars, sleeves, shirts, and pants. Bottom line is that tattoos should not be visible when you are fully dressed. If they are on the leg and visible when wearing short pants or sleeves, then you will not be able to wear those kinds of clothes on the job; of course, many corporate jobs require more formal clothing anyhow so wearing short sleeve shirts or shorts to work is not an option for many people.
When a candidate walks into an interview with a visible tattoo, just like with dress and language, the tattoo will tell information about the candidate that the interviewer receives and interprets, for better or worse. If the interviewer does not like the story being told, they will cross your name off the callback list, even if they liked your answers; if they have similar qualified candidates who do not have tattoos, those candidates will get the offers.
There is some positive to this though, some employers will not care if a candidate has tattoos if the position the candidate is applying for does not require the employee to have contact with the clients or customers. One HR manager mentioned how they used to work with someone who was hired by a company even though the employee had tattoos; unfortunately, the employee never made it past the loading docks because being promoted would mean being in a position in front of customers, which could not happen with all the tattoos on the arms.
Due to the fact that companies feel that appearance matters a lot in business, tattoos have not made their way into the hearts of many business owners. Studies have shown that people do a lot of judging based on someone’s appearance alone, before they even meet the person; when the people did meet the people they were judging based on looks, their thoughts on them were still largely guided by what their initial judgments said.