So the fact that in a perfectly conventional shop, okay we do sell exotics like high quality incense but we also sell tea, raisins, pasta, local honey, chocolate, cushion covers, high quality silver jewellery (plus lower quality fun jewellery), tea towels, shampoo, cleaning materials (okay highly green but cleaning materials none the less), cards, wrap, and the like, my bedecked apprentice - for want of a better word - is a big hit with the customers is irrelevant to this debate? Yet my 'average' customer is exactly the sort of conservative older person who'd you mostly likely expect to react against someone with piercings and at least some tattoos and mad hair colouring and 'fashionata' type clothing. But actually many of them come into the shop more often than they did before she came to work for me and are clearly disappointed when she is not around? So to my mind her appearance - whether I personally like it or not - is an asset?
I'm a shopkeeper. My job is to sell stuff not to abide by arcane dress conventions nor to expect my staff to do the same.
If I thought an interviewee was dressed in some way likely to be offensive to customers I'd have no hesitation - if they seemed likely to be a useful employee in other ways - to ask them to remove an item or tone down their general appearance as a condition of employment. But often what one generation reacts against is not only acceptable to the next but may also actually be attractive or at least a source of fascination to that older generation whatever they may say and tut tut about between themselves.
Point: if I was interviewing someone and they'd obviously removed an earring or earrings or nose ring for the purpose of the interview I would not be impressed, in fact I'd think they were a bit of a wuss! (Being a useful retail employee does something require a lot of spirit and courage, as when my apprentice faced down a group of professional shoplifters and was successful in making them put down most of the stolen items before leaving the premises). And, by the way, I would definitely notice both the hole and the missing item from it. I really can't see the distinction between punching a hole through one or both of your ear lobes (through both is the only piercing I've got and I was in my thirties before I got that and it was only because I started to sell earrings and realised that an earring seller without pierced ears is bit of a contradiction in terms) and punching a hole through your nose. There are also cultural/racial issues to be considered. In some cultures things like nose piercing/rings are pretty much universal for women at least and if you trade in an extremely multi-cultural area as I do you could actually be in danger of accusations of discrimination if you excluded potential employees on the basis of things like nose piercings.
I'd just add that I'm by no means convinced that even now it is an employer's market or at least not if you want really good employees rather than those who will turn up to interview looking like dowds (by modern standards) and saying all the (traditionally) right things in fear of the Job Centre. It is easy to get employees during a recession - unless they need to have highly specialist technical qualifications but most won't during a recession as no one will invest in training during such a period. Simply the fact that this thread exists shows that it is no longer so easy to get good employees - if it was easy to get good employees all you'd have to do would be to put an advert in your shop or office window rather than asking for advice here!
My suspicion is that many small businesses who complain about the lack of good employees suffer from judging folk by things like nose rings rather than looking further into their attitude/enthusiasm/willingness to learn.
