Does your hair style affect your job prospects?

I'd imagine if it was particularly radical it might do, like if you had green hair or something, but surely recruiters aren't that shallow that they'd reject someone over a haircut?

Hello, I used to think that employing a certain 'profile' to fit the relevancy of what the organisation does was important.  I certainly applied this logic myself having interviewed and recruited many dozens of individuals over the years.  

However I have discovered and am still discovering that this is not necessarily the best approach.   The world has clearly changed from when I started working.  I work in a financial services corporate environment that, although the men don't wear ties and the women standard matching business suits, still presents the dress code as semi formal (so men wear open neck formal shirts).  However as the business has expanded to include not only asset management but operations, the profile of the candidate has changed and with that in came purple and other stark coloured hair, hair not combed but scrunched up in a comb, mini skirts, high heeled shoes and outrageous fish net stockings, scruffy appearances, men with long hair et al.  Some of the change I can live with, some I still struggle with (like unwashed hair - days worth!).  But as a senior manager I try to look through all of that to the role and the competencies and skills required to do the job.  Naomi is perfectly correct to say that for client facing roles I would probably continue to be more selective. 

 I believe how we dress and look at work is important.  It has been my experience in an industrial environment that those people  who make the effort to dress appropriately also deliver the tidiest work.  From the office perspective there have been huge changes over the years. Dress is more casual and when it is not customer facing not a problem.  I suppose a question is, do we want to go back to the corporate uniforms?I agree that we could ignore and miss out on some talent due to how they dress.  Another way to look at this is,  we could loose business because of how they dress.Nicola, agree your last statement,

A student that worked for me one Summer (he was quite good for the most part) now has a mohican.  I feel quite certain that this has been a hindrance to him trying to get work, although he has succeeded in doing so - first for a well-known High Street food outlet where he dealt with people face to face, and more latterly for a hosting company (where he assists on the phone, so no face-to-face issues there).

Paul

The boss at Stena was talking recently about how many of their British staff were fat with tattoos, so whilst it doesn't seem to have hampered their attempts at finding work at the company it perhaps hasn't held them in particularly high esteem there!