To beard or not to beard, that is the question!

I've always been a fan of facial hair, I believe it has the ability to make one appear distinguished, mature and confident -just to clarify, I'm talking about men! But I was always a late bloomer catching my first whisker of facial hair only in my late teens. It wasn't until I was around the age of 23 that I was able to sport a goatee & tache combo with any confidence and even then a full beard eluded me. The patchy look isn't a good one.

  

During the course my my MBA I sported a well trimmed (and sometimes not so well trimmed) beard. Prior to that I was still with the goatee-tache combo. However, now faced with the possibility of job interviews I'm left wondering where the beard might fit in my new workplace.

Picard didn't have a problem with commander Riker having a beard

Just stop fucking with your face Michael!

In a recent conversation with a close friend I was advised to shave it all off in case my interviewer had some kind of prejudice against beards. "WHAAT?!", I replied, "a prejudice against beards? What the fuck? Do people in this day and age actually have prejudices against beards?". "Why risk it?" he replied. Now, this is all good and well but a razor hasn't touched my skin in nearly 3 years and even when I did shave my skin would come up in rashes and ingrowing hairs.

Pushing the envelope

Your chin is big enough mate, don't make it worse (I really hate these so-called line beards, the thinner the beard the bigger the twat)

Case and point

I agree, beards can look scruffy and unprofessional but there isnt any reason why this should be so. To be honest, at the moment mine is pretty out of control, to the point where it has become a bit of a joke. In fact, I've only trimmed once in 4 months and it's a good 3-4cm long.

My current untrimmed beard

When people ask me how long I've been unemployed (aside from some freelance stuff) I tend to just tug on my chin hairs and say "this long".

So what's your opinoin? Bearded in interview or not bearded and am I really taking a risk by going in bearded?

I leave you with a phrase I stumbled upon of Greek origin that made me chuckle:

"There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless - boys and women - and I am neither one."

Socrates did NOT mess about

How are things looking so far in 2009?

After a busy and indulgent Christmas and a distracting first half of January I find myself in the same position as many other people this year: without solid employment. With less jobs available and more unemployed job applications are very oversubscribed.

This morning I received a call from the MBA careers department reminding me that I am not alone in my job search and that they are here to help. Up until a couple of months ago I was making use of the department but was still having little/no luck so decided to go it alone. As you might guess this wasn't particularly successful either.

But I am not alone, one of our careers advisors told me today that the current job market "is the worst I have ever seen", and this is coming from someone with over 20 years working in recruitment. Many close friends from the MBA are also out of work. Coupled with a bleak and cold month of January, 2009 doesn't look so great.

In periods of growth, especially in the technology sector (where I'm coming from), business expertise seems to be welcomed overall. However, in our current period of decline employers seem to favour technical expertise over a forward thinking MBA sponsored mindset - and I was never the greatest technical mind, strong analytically but not a techie.

Anyway, so I agreed to see the careers department this week "for a boost", whatever that means. I'll let you know how it goes!