Advice needed please...

There is a surprising amount of beardism out there, especially amoung financial companies and US-owned companies.

Food companies also dislike facial hair, but there is more of a point with them - wearing a beard-net is uncomfortable and looks silly, so people can be tempted to 'forget', which can get the company into all sorts of trouble. Even for non-food-contact jobs they often like to have a general rule, so that they can move you between jobs more easily if they want.

If you got the interview through someone, it might be worth asking their advice on the possibility of wearing the beard to the interview but making it clear that you are willing to lose it if you get the job. Otherwise I guess you have to decide how much you want the job.

It's strange because there are people working there with full beards but they're exempt on religious grounds. Surely, if the reason behind this company not hiring people with beards is because they're unclean and untidy then how can a full unruly-looking beard be better than a neatly trimmed one? I don't understand it at all.

I didn't go for the interview in the end, I have enough money to see me through to the New Year so it's not pressing. I just felt that although it's just a beard, why should I be made to lose some of my individuality for a job and a pretty poorly paid one at that? Where I work currently, there are no rules on what I wear and how I look provided the job's done well but it's only part-time and I would like some more dosh coming in. Another stipulation for the interview was no earrings yet you're allowed to wear tons of gold jewellery around your neck and on your fingers. It's madness!

It depends on the reason behind their objection to beards, I guess. If they're a food company then it's not so much whether the beards are clean and tidy, but the fact that beard hairs fall out - and customers really don't appreciate such added extras :-)

The company is then left with a trade-off of hassle: between enforcing a policy of firing anyone handling food without a properly fitted beard net on the one hand, versus the hassle of dealing with accusations of discriminating against certain religious minorities on the other. The situation you describe sounds like such a compromise.

Some years back I worked for a big food company in its IT department. Even they recognised that IT people weren't going to be spending much time making their product, so there wasn't an explicit anti-beard policy for us, but I was in a very small minority (I don't remember seeing any other beards in the place), and I did get 'a little friendly advice' every now and again.