My partner and I are hoping to move to Japan for a work holiday visa, where presumably we’ll teach English as a foreign language. I’m a guy with long hair and a beard, like Rollo from seasons 1-3 Vikings but thicc, and if anyone could tell me; will I have to cut my hair and shave if I want to work in Japan? I have heard their views on appearances can be quite conservative but I don’t want to cut my hair and shave if I don’t have to. Appreciate any relevant insight, have a nice day.
4 comments
You won’t have to cut your hair or shave, but it would increase job potential. The places that don’t mind would expect it to be well maintained at least.
I’m going to riff a bit on one part of what u/aucnderutresjp_1 mentioned:
>The places that don’t mind would expect it to be well maintained at least.
Bear in mind that “the places that don’t mind” as an English Teacher are going to be a tiny fraction of the total available jobs.
The “product” in the English teaching industry is you. They’re not selling high-level academic excellence or in-depth language ability. They’re selling the teachers. They’re selling the opportunity to converse with a westerner, and the closer you are to the stereotypical western appearance the better your job opportunities will be. If there were enough blonde-haired, blue-eyed Californians available to fill the open positions, that’s who would get hired.
I’m not going to say that you *can’t* get a job teaching English with long hair and a beard, but… It’s gonna be tough, and the jobs that *are* available to you are probably not going to be the best.
The “best” alternative would be to cut/shave, but I don’t think you’d need to go that far. What I *will* suggest is to pick one: The hair or the beard. With just long hair or just a beard you’ll have no major issues. But if you rock up as a big dude who looks full-on Viking you’re gonna get a lot of rejections.
If you decide to keep both, make an effort to “clean up” as much as possible. Keep the hair tied back, keep the beard neat and trimmed. Basically the image you want to present is “Rugged Westerner”, not “Rampaging Barbarian”.
Expectations depends on the employer. My experience with facial hair was keeping it trimmed and neat. I think thick beards are fine as long as you aren’t growing the length out. One employer told me facial hair is fine as long as you aren’t looking like Santa Claus “length wise”.
For long hair, I haven’t seen too many men in English teaching with long hair but when I did they tie it back.
But if a employer wants you to cut your hair and/or shave/trim your beard, they’ll let you know.
Depends… as others have covered most of the important info, I’ll ask a different question just to give you guys something else to think about
Do you have an accent? Do you have tattoos? Places that don’t mind much about appearances will still have a limit as to what they can accept. Having one or two “unusual” features can be okay, but for example, a heavy accent, tattoos, beard AND long hair will seriously affect your chances of landing a nice job.
One of those “pick a struggle” situations tbh