What does a professional person look like?
It sounds like a simple question.
Until you actually try to answer it.
A suit?
No visible tattoos?
Natural-coloured hair?
No facial piercings?
Clean-shaven?
Small earrings, but not large ones?
A certain hairstyle?
A certain amount of makeup?
Perhaps none?
The longer the list becomes, the more interesting the question gets.
Because at some point we stop talking about whether somebody can do the job.
We start talking about whether they look like the kind of person we have been taught should do the job.
And those are not necessarily the same thing.
"Professional" is not as neutral as it sounds
I have worked across hospitality, recruitment, international education, community engagement and client-facing environments.
Appearance does matter in some of those settings.
I don't think pretending otherwise is useful.
If you work around food, hygiene standards matter.
If you operate machinery, loose clothing or jewellery may create a genuine safety issue.
If an organisation has a uniform, employees may reasonably be expected to wear it.
A luxury hotel may intentionally create a particular visual experience.
A construction site and a corporate boardroom obviously require different clothing.
So this is not an argument for:
Wear anything, anywhere, and employers should never have an opinion.
Context matters.
But there is another question employers should probably ask more often:
Is this rule necessary for the work, or does it simply make us more comfortable?
That distinction can be surprisingly difficult.
Tattoos are an easy example
Tattoos have become common in many countries and industries.
And yet research suggests they can still change how candidates are perceived.
A 2024 study using real recruiters found that applicants displaying tattoos or piercings were attributed less favourable personality characteristics, including being seen as less agreeable, conscientious and manageable.
For male candidates in that study, body art also reduced perceived hireability.
That does not mean every recruiter consciously thinks:
Tattoo equals bad employee.
Bias rarely announces itself so conveniently.
It may appear as:
"I'm not sure he fits the culture."
"She doesn't quite have the right image."
"They might not suit our clients."
"I can't explain it, but the other candidate just seems more professional."
That final word can carry an extraordinary amount of unexamined judgement.
But attitudes are changing
The story is not entirely negative.
More recent research with tattooed employees suggests workplace acceptance is improving.
Remote and hybrid work have also changed how much employees feel they have to manage their physical appearance for colleagues and customers.
Still, visible tattoos can create pressure for people to manage other people's perceptions of them.
Cover this one.
Show that one.
Wear long sleeves for the interview.
Perhaps don't show the piercing until after probation.
Many people have probably received advice like this without anybody explicitly describing it as bias.
It is simply presented as:
That's how the professional world works.
But professional worlds change.
They always have.
That final word can carry an extraordinary amount of unexamined judgement.
Think about what we used to consider normal
Workplace appearance standards are not fixed laws of nature.
They move.
Beards move in and out of acceptability.
Long hair on men moves in and out.
Visible tattoos change.
Dress codes become more casual.
Ties disappear.
Trainers appear in offices where they once would have been unthinkable.
Remote work gave us the extraordinary professional uniform of:
formal shirt above the webcam, whatever you want below it.
Even the idea of business attire varies dramatically between sectors, generations, climates and countries.
What looks perfectly normal in a creative agency may look unusual in private banking.
What feels formal in Australia may not communicate exactly the same thing in Spain.
What one generation reads as rebellious, another may barely notice.
So when we call something "unprofessional", it is worth asking:
Unprofessional according to whom?
Then culture enters the conversation
This is where the subject becomes more complicated.
Not every visible difference is simply fashion.
Religious clothing, head coverings, hairstyles with cultural significance and other expressions of identity cannot simply be grouped together with:
tattoos,
fashion choices,
or whether somebody prefers a nose ring.
The distinction matters.
Aesthetic expression is one conversation.
Religion, culture and identity may involve very different ethical and legal considerations.
European courts, for example, have dealt extensively with workplace rules involving religious dress and symbols.
The legal position is more nuanced than either:
"employers can ban anything"
or
"employers can never set appearance rules."
Context, proportionality, neutrality policies and the nature of the work can all matter.
But even before the legal question comes the human one:
How much conformity should somebody have to perform before we are willing to recognise their competence?
International workplaces make this much more obvious
When everybody around you has grown up with the same norms, those norms can feel invisible.
Move between countries and suddenly they become noticeable.
Ideas about:
formality,
punctuality,
hierarchy,
eye contact,
personal space,
clothing,
tattoos,
greetings,
hairstyles,
and even what counts as respectful disagreement
can shift.
That is one of the things international work has taught me.
People often use the word professional when what they really mean is:
familiar to me.
And familiarity is culturally shaped.
A manager may genuinely believe they are applying an objective standard while unknowingly applying the standard they grew up with.
That doesn't necessarily make them malicious.
It does mean organisations need enough cultural awareness to challenge their own assumptions.
Customer preference is not always the final answer
One of the most common defences of strict appearance standards is:
Our customers expect it.
Sometimes that may be commercially relevant.
But it also deserves scrutiny.
If a customer says they do not want to deal with somebody because that employee has a tattoo, should the organisation automatically accommodate that preference?
What if the objection is a headscarf?
A hairstyle?
An accent?
A disability?
At some point, "customer preference" stops being a neutral business justification and starts becoming a way to outsource prejudice.
Businesses make choices about the behaviours they normalise.
Sometimes leadership means deciding that a customer's discomfort does not automatically outweigh an employee's dignity.
There is also a commercial argument for flexibility
Organisations say they want diverse teams.
But diversity becomes fairly meaningless if everyone is welcome only after they learn to look, sound and behave exactly like the people already there.
There is a practical talent question too.
If two candidates can perform the role equally well and one is rejected because of an appearance preference unrelated to performance, the employer has reduced its own talent pool.
That may have been easier to justify when companies could assume candidates had limited options.
Today's labour market is different.
People increasingly look at culture before joining.
They notice whether employees seem comfortable being themselves.
They notice leadership teams.
They notice employer branding.
They notice which kinds of people appear to succeed inside an organisation.
A dress code therefore communicates in both directions.
It tells employees what is expected.
It also tells potential employees:
who we imagine belongs here.
Authenticity isn't unlimited either
I don't think the alternative is that workplaces should have no boundaries.
Professional relationships involve adapting to context.
We already do this with communication.
I speak differently with a close friend than I would during a boardroom presentation.
That does not mean one version is fake.
It means I understand the situation.
Appearance can work the same way.
Someone can express individuality while still respecting the environment they work in.
An employer can establish standards while still questioning whether each standard is genuinely necessary.
The useful middle ground is not:
anything goes
versus
everyone must look the same.
It is:
Can we explain why this rule exists?
If the answer is hygiene, safety, identification or a genuine operational requirement, that is useful.
If the answer is:
because that's what professional people look like
perhaps the conversation is not finished.
What are we actually hiring?
When I think about people I have worked with, managed or recruited, the qualities I remember rarely involve their appearance.
I remember the person who could calm down an unhappy customer.
The person who showed up when the team was under pressure.
The person who noticed somebody new was struggling and helped without being asked.
The person who followed through.
The person who could explain something complicated simply.
The person who owned a mistake.
The person clients trusted.
The person who made the team better.
None of those capabilities has a hairstyle.
None has a piercing policy.
Competence does not have a preferred sleeve length.
Perhaps professionalism needs a better definition
Instead of defining professionalism primarily by appearance, I would rather define it through behaviour.
Do you respect other people?
Can people rely on you?
Do you communicate appropriately?
Do you understand your responsibilities?
Can you adapt to context?
Do you take accountability?
Do you represent the organisation well?
Do you make customers, colleagues and stakeholders feel respected?
Those standards are harder to assess than whether somebody has a visible tattoo.
But they are also much closer to what organisations actually need.
Maybe professionalism was never supposed to mean looking identical.
Maybe it was supposed to mean understanding the responsibility that comes with the work.
And if that is the case, perhaps the question is not:
Does this person look professional?
Perhaps it is:
Does the way this person works earn our trust?
That is a dress code I would be much more comfortable applying.
Sources & further reading
- What does job applicants' body art signal to employers? (Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024): the scenario experiment using real recruiters that measured how tattoos and piercings affected perceived personality characteristics and hireability.
- Tattooed employees in the modern workplace: navigating judgement (Emerald, 2026): research on how attitudes towards tattooed employees are changing and the stigma that persists.
- Freedom of religion in the workplace: case law factsheet (EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2026): FRA and European Court of Human Rights guidance on how courts approach workplace rules involving religious dress and symbols.