There are lots of awesome things about being a beardsman. Having a complete, robust thicket of hair on your face enhances your masculinity. It allows you to be creative with your appearance, and it offers a bit of protection to your face. One thing that’s less awesome is how many potential employers view facial hair. If you’re looking for a job these days, you might be wondering if you need to shave your beard clean off.
While facial hair in the office is increasingly common today, many jobs have always welcomed beardsmen. Nine beard friendly jobs are:
- Barbers
- IT workers
- Photographers and musicians
- Brewers
- Car mechanics
- Tattoo artists
- Designers and engineers
- Teachers
- Construction workers and carpenters
Without further ado, let’s talk about employer attitudes regarding facial hair. Then, we will list our top 9 beard-friendly jobs.
The Beard’s Place in the Workplace
Much has been written about making first impressions with prospective employers. You can find countless articles about what clothing to wear, what to bring with you, and what questions to ask. There are whole classes on how to market yourself to potential employers.
Implicit in all these articles is that you should look as clean-cut and professional as possible. Unfortunately, this often includes a baby smooth face.
In a LinkedIn post from 2017, Sales and Marketing Specialist Adnan Yahya discussed the negative associations that corporate interviewers have with bearded applicants. Yahya, a beardsman himself, said that long facial hair could, rightly or wrongly, imply the following:
- Laziness
- Lack of proper hygiene
- Aggression
- Shiftiness
- Rebelliousness
If that list got your dander up, we promise you aren’t alone. Besides being highly dismissive (Yahya also mentions that beards can have a religious context that interviewers may dislike), it indicates something unpleasant. Many employers don’t want their employees to be themselves. They would prefer for people to subsume their identities as much as possible in the office.
We know: that’s a bummer. But it’s worth considering the metaphysical ramifications of an employer that wants you to change how you look. It’s about more than some hair on your jawline. It’s about giving eight hours every weekday to an organization. That could end up being one-third of your adult life. For that commitment, the employer should respect you as an individual.
Here are nine jobs that will respect your beardsman profile. See if one sparks your interest!
#1 – Barber
Perhaps this one goes without saying, but we will anyway. Guys like to have a barber who knows how to manage his appearance. A luxurious, well-crafted beard can be a tremendous asset to a men’s haircutter. It shows a holistic love of hair.
In many ways, a beard is a signifier. When you see another guy with comparable facial hair, you see a kindred spirit. If you are looking for someone to trim and style your head and face, that connection is even more critical. It forges a level of trust to put your own identity in another beardsman’s hands.
Of course, becoming a barber requires training and education. Almost all lifelong careers do. If you have a passion for your facial hair, why not consider sharing it with the world?
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#2 – Information Technology
While office work is not always compatible with robust facial hair, one major exception is IT. Fair or not, corporate environments seem to feel less desire to police the grooming choices of technology workers. Mostly, that is because they are less client-facing.
Moreover, the IT world moves to a different drummer from other office teams. Tech guys and ladies tend to be more off-beat and esoteric in their interests.
In our experience, IT groups also hew closer than other departments. They’re less internally competitive and develop a clearer sense of camaraderie. You need only look at the classic British show The IT Crowd to see this dynamic (hilariously) in play. This tightness often means that tech departments encourage fun and unique appearance choices.
Plus, the CEO isn’t going to complain about your huge face-mane while you’re in the process of removing malware from his company laptop.
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#3 – Photography and Music
Artistic pursuits are almost always compatible with fully-grown facial hair. It’s pretty much part of the creative dude’s uniform
Indeed, for almost all the same reasons that white-collar jobs dislike facial hair, the music and photographic spheres love it. These jobs have a more laid-back and creative atmosphere. That kind of free expression is more than just affection, too. It is imperative for success in these fields.
So is independence. The obvious downside of these careers is security. Both photography and music are mainly gig-based jobs. Moreover, they require specialized skills and constant practice. Even so, if you can make a go of it in the creative spheres, this freedom will be a fringe benefit.
And remember, part of that freedom is the ability to grow a fine artist’s beard.
#4 – Brewing
What is it about beer and beards that go so well together? Heck, they even sound alike!
Not for nothing; there are a disproportionate number of craft brewers with long thickets on their faces. As with many of the jobs on this list, it has to do with beer-making’s independent, non-corporate spirit.
As a general rule, breweries are small passion projects. The people who work at them aren’t in it for money, by and large. They want to make good beer and go their own way. For men in the industry, this often translates into wild, untamed facial hair. There’s also a natural inkling to embrace the pre-Prohibition hirsute aesthetic.
There’s also some natural symmetry to brewers’ beards. Beermaking relies on natural ingredients. Often, it ferments from wild microbes in the air. A bushy beard is almost a physical manifestation of this process. In fact, in a prior post, we discussed a particular beer made with yeast cultures in a brewer’s beard.
So, yeah – brewing is a pretty beard-friendly career option.
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#5 – Mechanics
Have you ever noticed that car mechanics often rock full facial hair?
It’s true – mechanics is an incredibly beard-friendly job option. To begin, it is just about as far away from a desk job as one could imagine. Plus, it’s a career involving lots of sparks and splatters. Many mechanics have a thick pelt of fur on their chins to protect their faces.
Also, for better or worse, working with cars is viewed as a masculine pursuit. More than that, it’s an old-school discipline. The automobile – of all its contemporary technology – is still an early twentieth-century invention. Drivers subconsciously trust a mechanic that looks like he could have worked on Henry Ford’s original assembly line.
One thing to note – being a mechanic can be dirty work. If you are rocking long facial hair, be sure to give it a good wash every day!
#6 – Tattoo Artistry
Beards are alternative to their core. In the modern incarnation, they are the mainstays of artists, hipsters, and individualists.
Do you know what else falls into that category? Tattoos.
From super-stylish creatives to tough-as-nails bikers, copious ink is a must. Beardsmen consider their face a canvass, and tattoo enthusiasts consider their body a canvass. In the corporate world, they call that synergy.
The body-ink world and the beardsman community have significant Venn diagram overlap, both in turns of personnel and in terms of temperament. Once again, entry into this profession requires extensive dedication and training. Still, if you want to share your love of self-expression with like-minded people – and get paid doing it – this is a career track to consider.
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#7 – Design and Engineering
If you are a guy with a drafting table and multiple straight-edges, there’s a decent chance you also have some serious whiskers on your face.
Industrial engineers, graphic designers, spec developers – all these professions are highly beard-friendly. In many ways, workers in these fields exist in a space equidistant from art and science. Both creative and analytical, commercial and intellectual, a lot is going on with this sector.
One unifying component to all design and engineering is a casual aesthetic. It involves spending day after day with rolled sleeves and graphite-covered fingertips. This kind of work encourages comfortable shoes and business casual attire. You probably don’t need to worry about keeping a baby-smooth face.
Design and engineering encompass a wide range of employment, as well as many different specific jobs. It involves a lot of analysis and attention to detail. If you are willing to put the time in to learn the necessary skills, it can also be a fulfilling and lucrative sector. It’s also always in demand!
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#8 – Academia
The image of a bearded teacher or professor with tweed, elbow patches, and chalky hands exists for a good reason. It is still quite prevalent in real life.
Well, the tweed and patches might have gone out of style, and the chalk might have been replaced with dry-erase ink and projected slides. Yet the beard remains. Academia is still a haven for hairy faces. Molding young minds requires dedication, patience, and professionalism, but you don’t need a clean shave.
Academia is perhaps more beard-friendly than most white-collar jobs because it exists (mostly) outside the profit mindset. Educators are supposed to focus on theory and facts, not the bottom line. So, they receive leeway to let their whiskers grow. If it was okay for Plato, why not an adjunct professor?
One other reason for the relatively laissez-faire facial hair of academia is its job security. Without significant cause, educators are rarely sacked. Certainly, a little scruff on the chin would not be cause for reprimand.
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#9 – Construction and Carpentry
Finally, we come to builders. Without these hardy individuals, we wouldn’t have houses, furniture, office towers, or interior design finishes. Next time you pass a construction crew, count the number of bearded faces. We think you’ll see more than a couple.
Much like with auto mechanics, construction workers often grow long beards to protect their faces from sparks and debris. Unlike mechanics, these folks spend long hours exposed to the elements, even when it’s frigid, snowing, or pouring buckets. A thicket of facial hair does wonders for insulating the skin.
These jobs involve a lot of elbow grease as well. They’re the type of work where you shower at the end of the day instead of the beginning. Make sure, when you do shower, that you give your face and beard a thorough scrubbing. The oil, sawdust, and grime in there won’t do your pores any favors.
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Grooming Your Beard to Find a Job
On average, most guys aren’t able to tailor their job search only to include the occupations listed above. To begin with, many require extensive education, training, and apprenticeships. Others might not be sufficient to pay the bills, and unfortunately, those aren’t going away anytime soon.
You might need to turn to sectors that traditionally are less welcoming of the big beard lifestyle.
We are living in a period of high unemployment. The economy is slowly restarting, and lots of people are looking for work. If you are among the ranks of those seeking a job, here are some beard-specific presentation tips for interviewing:
- If you don’t want to shave your beard entirely, at least trim it to a shorter length that matches your natural face shape.
- Consider whether a thinner, more geometric beard or a goatee would be a better fit for the job you’re applying to.
- Brush your beard out before trimming so that all the hair is going in the right direction while you sculpt it.
- Invest in a beard shaper to ensure a clean mustache, cheek, and neckline. These tools are pretty affordable, and you can even make your own at home!
- On the day of your interview, give your beard a good wash, then brush in some beard oil or balm, so you look your best.
- Give the beard one last look-over and snip away any unsightly flyaway hairs.
- After a year and a half of remote work, your beard might be slightly grayer than when the pandemic began. If you feel self-conscious about this, there’s nothing wrong with a little subtle dyeing. Just make sure it blends well.
There is no guarantee that the prospective employer will react well to your facial hair. Even so, taking these steps will prove to them that you take your appearance seriously and will represent their company well.
The Changing Corporate Attitude Toward Beards
We began this article by discussing the unfair stigma facial hair can create in an interview. Now, let’s look at the positive side of corporate America’s relationship to hirsute men.
You see, as more guys have embraced the beard, more employers have accepted that there will be beardsmen among their ranks. This change mirrors an overall shift in America’s dominant industries. Whereas office blocks used to be full of white-shoe law firms and banks, they now also house digital marketers, app developers, and talent agencies. The endless legions of gray wool suits have been replaced with Untuckit flannels and denim.
So, investment bankers and insurance brokers started sharing office lobbies with bearded “information sector” workers. They are now beginning to accept the look as office appropriate. You might not see a Citibank CFO with a full lumberjack beard, but we’re starting to see some whiskers in E suites.
To be sure, some jobs will probably never tolerate a bearded workforce. The military, police, food-service workers, the New York Yankees – these are all institutions that cling tightly to a controlled, bare-faced appearance. They expect compliance, not dialog.
However, for the rest of the working world, fortunes might just be shifting for beardsmen. Don’t discount a corporate job posting that interests you. You might find that the office culture is more conducive to your grooming choices than you expect.
The Bottom Line
Finding a job can be nerve-wracking. It is one of those unpleasant experiences where you feel like your whole being is under a microscope. Interviewers judge your work history, education, skills, and personality. That’s to be expected. If you have a full face of hair that you treasure, it’s enraging to think that you’re being judged for that too.
Remember, there are many jobs out there that are beard-friendly. We have listed nine of the prominent options, but there are far more than that. Even better, companies are changing their grooming policies every day, and the changes are almost always in favor of more facial hair freedom.
Are you thinking that it might be time to give up on your beard? Before you do anything drastic, give a read to our recent article exploring the reasons guys shave their beards off.