I’m worried my appearance will jeopardise my career opportunities. Should I modify my look to fit in?
I am a woman in my mid-40s. For the best part of a decade I’ve had very short hair. It’s convenient, easy to maintain and I genuinely like a slightly androgynous look – always have done. In the past year I’ve dyed it a variety of colours (purple, red and orange) as it grows out quickly. My short hair also reveals another aspect about me: I wear hearing aids. I don’t care about strangers knowing about my deafness. If folks can easily see my hearing aids, it means I don’t have to “out” myself to every new person I meet.
It only concerns me at the moment as I would like to consider applying for a new job. Appearing “other” and deaf are not necessarily assets to have when entering this market. When I was previously job hunting I had longer hair and better hearing. The field I work in currently is quite conservative and male-dominated. Should I modify my appearance to fit in and be conventional, or will being true to myself work to my advantage in the long run?
Eleanor says: Two things we know: appearances shouldn’t matter; your hair cut or colour is not an indication of talent and it’s downright illegal to treat your hearing aid as one. But appearances often do matter. Every aesthetic choice tells people how to read us, even the choice to avoid aesthetic choices.
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I wish I could just say: “Be you! Whittle too much of yourself down and there won’t be any left.” But you’re right that standing out can cost you opportunities, or get you cast as the “alternative” one. Some places are so hidebound that the audacity of an interesting sock is enough to make you Seriously Counter-Cultural. I know a man who missed out on a job because he has a knuckle tattoo. Without knowing more about your field or career chances, I can’t just say, “be the change you want to see”, as much as I wish we all would.
I think the better question is where you want to draw the line. Most of us are not our complete selves at work. But that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes a work mode lets you experience versions of yourself you don’t experience elsewhere, and leaving some parts of yourself behind is how you get that. Sometimes people are able to be more professional, more direct, less compelled to shrink away, or just more task-oriented, more absorbed in something. Many people have facets of themselves they only step into fully at work. That wouldn’t happen if we were all expected to be our full normal selves at work. Leaving the personal life or the jokes or the floppy T-shirts at home is strictly speaking a way of changing ourselves to fit in, but it’s a change that lets us access a version of ourselves we value being. Sometimes setting aside certain parts of yourself lets you more fully inhabit the others.
At other times, though, setting aside parts of yourself just feels like capitulation. Deep values, hard-won parts of our personality or self-presentation: some stuff feels awful to set aside for other people’s sake, even if only temporarily.
I think the question is: would growing your hair out and covering your hearing aids make you feel like a version of yourself, or less like yourself? Would it make you feel like you’re controlling the impression you make or being controlled by it?
Nobody should expect that who you are at work represents all of who you are. You shouldn’t think that of yourself, either. It’s OK to make changes that will make your life easier. Equally, some changes don’t make life easier – they make it smaller. If that’s the kind of choice you’re being offered, then it isn’t you who needs to change.
