I'm at the beginning of my developer career and one question kinda haunts me: does the look of the developer matters in his or her chances to get the job?
I'm talking about tattoos and piercings, the most common, evident and "hated" body modifications the companies tend to not like at all.
I personally care about my look and about what I'm wearing, but even if my tattoos aren't directly visible with a normal shirt on, my piercings (lip, ear and a nose bridge) are very evident.
What's your opinion about this? Have you had any experiences either as a recruiter or as an employee?
Latest comments (27)
Late to the party, but I have a book at home actually titled "Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?" (the answer is yes, for what it's worth)
Since interviews are two ways, yes, be yourself to the interview. If they have issues with your appearance, they can opt to not extend an offer. You wouldn't want to work at a place that dislikes your style anyway. It may mean applying to smaller companies or small departments within large companies, but it will help you find a match better for you. At least in my company, I've not seen judgements about clothes, tattoos, piercings, alt hair, etc other than the one time a manager ranted on LinkedIn about the meaning behind his palm tat. And the gossip from that was minimal :P
Thanks for sharing your experience! I've actually had a couple of interviews since I wrote this and despite my look they both went great.
We do hiring decisions partly based on "could we send this person to a customer?". So when you apply at an agency/consultancy, the the look is important, and you better overdress than underdress.
The way you present yourself is important. Even care-free startups expect you to have clean clothes and comb your hair on occasion. You're expected to have a semblance of caring about your appearance. If you don't look like you care, then inferences are made that you don't care about your work either.
It's also not just about what the employer thinks, but their potential clients. Depending on the job you may those clients, or an investor, or other external person, walk through the offices. The way individuals look leaves an impression.
Personally I find piercings and tattoos accentuate a style, this can be either good or bad. Bad tattoos likely create a negative impression as well -- on the assumption that you do rash things without considering the consequences. Good tattoos can show a commitment and consideration of one's self.
Please, don't be one of those people that play with their piercings! Nor come in with a fresh tattoo or piercing -- yeah this happens -- show some sense in timing new acquisitions.
In my experience, the majority of tech-related companies don't care how you look as long as you're able to perform well and deliver the kind of results they are expecting from you.
Depends on the location and company culture.
In Dallas at a military contractor, visible tattoos and piercings would make you a fast NoHire.
In Seattle, no one would bat an eye.
Hey! I’m a co-founder of 2 company’s (1 startup legal/law tech and an softhouse) in Brazil, in both company’s we don’t have any problems with your look or your tattoos, but when a client or a partner goes to the office for a meeting, we ask to everyone take a cloth more adequate for this occasion. This happens because we still a small team, so a lot of times we call some one of the team to participate in the meeting.
Currently we have 8 people on the software house (3 co-founders + 1 vesting) + 1 designer, 1 full-stack, 1 front-end junior and 1 trainee and in the law tech startup we have 6 people ( 4 co-funder and 2 vesting)
Good luck into your dev journey!!
And sorry for any orthography error, English isn’t my home language (of course 🇧🇷), I understand very well any text but I’m horrible in create one
You might like to use Grammarly.com when writing to understand your errors and better express yourself :)
Totally echoing what many others have said below.
It depends on the company. We're a mix of fairly-tattooed people and non in my office. As someone who's assisted in the interview process for new hires (and is a pretty conforming person, except for a tiny nose stud) body modifications like this matter much less than a put-together and positive demeanor (handshake, eye contact, etc.)
But of course, there will be companies that will rule you out for these reasons. And there will likely be some companies 10+ years from now too who will still do this.
A little poking around on culture pages (though not all companies includes photos), Instagram accounts, and public-facing company information about employees can give you insight to a company's vibe, which is a helpful place to start.
I don't work for a tech company unfortunately, however I work in a very big and "worldwide-well-known" company. The thing is that, as other people said before me, it depends.
I'm talking about the dress code the company has, usually kinda free in the limits of decency (you cannot just go to work almost naked you know?) and hygiene, or the employers themselves, I mean, your look is the first thing they see and the first they evaluate even before to proceed with the interviews.
Anyway, I think that if an employee worth the efforts, making an eventual good impact on the company's profit thanks to his work, the look is definitely put aside. This is what I learned in my experience working for a big company.
I work at a 100+ year corporation that's encouraging employees to normalize tattoos.
This is always been an interesting part of the tech community to me so I'm glad you asked this.
Personally I've found companies that value their developers enough are more relaxed about look, but that extra relaxation varies.
I'd agree with most people here that like most jobs, you should be clean and presentable so as not to distract coworkers. You don't need to smell like aftershave, but you shouldn't reek to the point where others can't focus.
I have really enjoyed the relaxed dress codes that follow our professions. I've had many times where I'm at a relaxed social gathering, I tell people "these are the same clothes I go to work in," and they're completely jealous. Really, not wearing button downs is one of my favorite coding perks :)
I hate to tell you, but it really depends on the company. I've worked in the software engineering field for 18 years now and I can tell have seen all variants from full business dress to very very casual. Heck, within my own company it varies from dept to dept. I would say though that as long as you look presentable i.e. clean, most don't care about tattoos or piercings unless the context of said body art is offensive in some way, which could lead to an instability in their workforce as a unit.
It depends on the company. I work since two years at some new-cool-tech companies and I mostly wear damaged jeans and Iron Maiden/Metallica/Geek t-shirts with an out-of-control beard and it was never a problem.
I think that if a company push a dress code or have "stupid" judgment about tattoos or things like that, I'll just never work for them. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Context : I have visible piercing and tattoos too.
I had a talk with the persons doing the interviews in the company where I made my internship. It was really a nice place, with some people with tattoos or piercings, casual looks... And they told me that look was still kind of important, because there is a higher chance that you fit in the company if you share a same style.
It goes both ways, they told me they already had people during interviews who came in full suit, and they were thinking "he didn't actually understand, or maybe don't care about, the kind of company we are"...
So I guess you just have to fit, to find the people who will be in good terms with each other.
And take care of your personal hygiene, THAT is important. And be careful about your environment, because people will be nicer with a tattooed person who flush and wash hands after getting to the toilets, and clean when he spilled his coffee than with a person in suit who don't.
Well that is sadly not always true but in any case I will.
Just my 2 cents as someone with visible tattoos and piercings:
1) I was and am fully aware that this might hinder recruitment processes.
2) I don't care - I don't want to work for a company where this is a problem anyway.
When i started working, i only had a tattoo though. I 'compensated' by dressing up a bit more - so i made sure not to give any don't care vibes...
It seems to me that if this does not cause a general disgust and looks aesthetically pleasing, and also not obscene, then this is normal.
Also think in my job.