Business Casual "Beard" help?

danielgalway

Hi all,


Is it important to be clean shaven in a business casual environment?
Would appreciate some help on this topic. Will be starting a new job in a week or so. It's an office environment and the dress code is business casual.

I've had a beard for months now. It's nothing special, maintained at about two to three weeks of growth. I am wondering if I should shave this on my first day on the job. As a side note, I am 21 years old and have a "baby" face. Without a beard I look quite young, 18 years old if I'm lucky, sometimes I have been told I look even younger. I have now graduated from college and am starting training with many other graduates who are in their mid-twenties if not older. I would feel out of place in a way. I am in a sense worried about being in an environment in which I look MUCH younger than the majority of the other people working there. I am also unsure if this would affect possible work opportunities in the future.

I really don't want to shave my "beard" because I feel it suits me and makes me actually look my age, feedback from others has also been positive.

It may be worth noting that I did an internship in the same workplace/ company last summer. The majority of people were clean shaven. But there also were some people with beards, and even a number with much longer beards than mine.

I would really appreciate advice on this.

Thanks.

dudara

Beards are much acceptable these days, as long as they are tidy & well-groomed. I wouldn't see any issue with it.

endacl

One you don't have a peg leg and a parrot on your shoulder you'll be grand.

Take care of the edges.

TrustedApple

Well i was told to shave mine off and cut my hair in a Smart Casual environment in a large IT company.



That is more or less the same hair and beard as me and was told to shave it off i just laughed and said no as it does not effect my work

To make it worse you don't face clients at all in there just via emails and phone calls.

In the end i got a very fake sorry by my manager as i question him on why i cant look the way i wont to when it does my effect my work ?.

Just have a look in your company handbook and make sure to read what it says.

danielgalway

Had a look at the handbook and can't find anything relating to facial hair or having a beard. Not sure how to take that. It only speaks about clothing appropriate for business casual. My beard is nowhere near as long as what is shown in the above photo.


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/48/55/e5/4855e5310c22ddae0916c5f7101df26e.jpg

Mine would be that long if not just a few millimeters longer.

Speedwell

Trusted Apple's pictured style would in no way have been an acceptable beard style in any IT workplace I've been in where the dress code was "business casual" rather than simply "casual", even if all you did was sit on a support desk all day remotely helping clients you never met and would never meet, danielgalway. I think the actual line in the company handbook was "well-kept facial hair". In my department the longest beard I ever saw was less than half that length, with tidy moustaches that didn't extend down the sides of the mouth, and the neck and part of the under-chin were cleaned up. Incidentally there were a few men with long hair or dreadlocks, all of whom happened to keep their hair tied back or put up.

This included workplaces in the oil industry where men wore beards for religious reasons. One of the older design engineers, a burly Texas white man, did wear a full beard, and got away with it because he had been with the company twenty years and was considered indispensable, but he was never allowed to participate in product testing in the lab if the required PPE might include a face mask. I know it cost him at least one promotion for that reason. Some of the established people in your workplace might have been people like this, or who were grandfathered in under an older, more lenient rule.

It would make a lot of sense for you to scale it back a bit, just to show that you are trying to meet them halfway. They might be satisfied enough with that. (I just saw your picture in your 12:40 post. If that's how you look, I would consider that perfectly appropriate in a business casual setting or even above.)

endacl

TrustedApple wrote: »

That is more or less the same hair and beard as me

Hipster. Feel shame.