I have two tattoos on my arms that are very visible and hard to cover up unless I wear long sleeves. None of them are offensive, I would like to think. One is a fairly large landscape on my forearm and the other is a small rose on my wrist.
Will these affect my chances of passing interviews if the interviewer sees them?
11 comments
Didn’t stop me getting here. It may have affected which placements wanted me but they’ll never tell.
The interviewers won’t really care as long as you’re dressed professionally. In Japan though you’ll most likely be required to cover them at school so emotionally prepare yourself for wearing long sleeves all summer
Getting on the program: unless you have some pretty drastic face/neck tattoos, it’s unlikely to matter.
Once you’re here: it depends on your area, but you may be asked to cover them up at work. Just prepare for that beforehand and hope for the best.
A lot of JETs have tattoos and piercings. It’s less of an issue nowadays.
Don’t tell, don’t know.
Shouldn’t be too big of an issue. I’ve known several JETs who had tattoos, one of which who had two tattoos on his forearms. He just had to wear long sleeves to work every day, even in summer (which seemed to suck because it’s fucking hot in the summer), but as long as you’re okay with that then don’t worry about it.
Almost everyone I know in my area has tattoos. It’s the inaka. A few of us have arm tattoos. If you can cover them, it’s fine.
For me it was fine. Also they don’t care that I have mine exposed at school.
Me and my two friends here in our inaka town all have tattoos and it didn’t affect us getting in 🙂
I would like to warn you though that an interviewer did ask me if I’d be willing to get my tattoos removed. I told them no because my ink means a lot to me. I was still hired after that interaction. I’ve shared that experience with others and many ALTs told me it’s normal for interviewers to throw in an out-of-pocket question just to see how you would react and deal with unexpected situations. So ye, just something to keep in mind 🙂
Wear… long… sleeves
Wear long sleeves to the interview. You may get a panel of interviewers that have a conservative old Japanese man/woman who could doc you points. You could also not. Better be safe than sorry.
>None of them are offensive, I would like to think.
Tattoos in Japan in general are considered “offensive” by some.
Is it professional to have visible tattoos at a job interview? I would say, generally no, in any country. I personally don’t care one way or the other. But some people do care. To me a person that ignores this common advice is either very confident and doesn’t care what other people think, or simply doesn’t care about following social norms, that’s a positive or a negative depending on what you are interviewing for. JET is no different. Might not care, but will definitely affect the interviewers opinions on how well you’ll adapt to a foreign culture and how much effort you’ll put into not making waves. Some CO want very westernized JETS and won’t care about the tattoos, others will specifically request no tattoos. The application asks about the tattoos anyway. You don’t have any reason to show them during the interview. In fact I would say that you have absolutely no benefit whatsoever to show them. Either they won’t care and it will have no bearing on the results, or they will care and your inability to cover them for the interview itself will suggest that you aren’t willing to cover them in Japan either regardless or not of if that is actually the case.
So really the only smart move to make is to cover them. You gain nothing by not doing so. You risk more by not doing so.