Disclaimer: This is solely based on my personal experience. Those that do not fall into the pitfalls identified herein, I salute you, and there are many that could learn a lesson from your openness.
Keeping Up (With) Appearances: An analysis of appearance in Information Technology
As someone who has gone through a fair number of job interviews, I have noticed a theme throughout all of them, in fact, it is evident and pervasive throughout business culture, and indeed, all other industries. The theme I am talking about is appearance, and while it plays an important role, I would argue that our ideas of appearance aren't necessarily focused on the priorities they should be. A professional appearance is important, of that there can really be no argument, but what constitutes the point at where professional begins and ends, and how much personality are we truly allowed to express in the workplace?I have seen employers snub off those with beards, or tattoos, or a wild hair-color, because they didn't feel they were representative of their business, indeed, I have friends that have encountered this very experience. The sad part of this is, that I have met some of the people that have been chosen instead. I have been their customer, and I have attempted to be as objective as possible, but in many of those cases, appearance did not make for an optimal experience.
Though I have been building computers since childhood, did troubleshooting for friends and family, and repaired almost anything I could get my hands on, I am new to the professional IT field. Not for lack of trying, but at the same point, I can look back and say that I could have gotten started earlier had I taken the right steps. That being said, I have never had anyone in the field dispute the quality of my work, or of my interactions with them, both professionally, and on a more personal level. Yet. The last word is important, in that I understand that will not last forever, or, more realistically since I just started my IT consulting company, Drake Consulting (shameless. Sorry, not sorry), much longer at all, as you cannot please everyone. I have a beard. I listen to industrial music, and I play video games. Beyond any of those things, I am passionate about technology. I get excited when new hardware architectures come out, scientific advances, discoveries in astronomy, mathematics, programming, AI. So, by association, I am passionate about the work that I do, and the work that I will do in the future. If I worked for you, I would be passionate about what YOU do, and I am not alone in this.
I would ask, as a business owner, would you rather your users utilized an application that worked quickly, efficiently, without crashing, but without the bells and whistles; or an application that had a gorgeous interface that took 15 minutes to load with a 50-50 chance of crashing before it loaded? As a carpenter, would you rather have a great looking hammer that hurt your hand, or the beat-up one with the worn in grip that got you through twelve hour days without blisters? Information Technology is a field centered on people, but fails in many regards to acknowledge it, choosing to focus ostensibly instead on 1s and 0s. If someone asked my about my (admittedly right this second, a bit scraggly looking) facial hair, how many companies would hire a person who’s response would be “Who has time to shave, when hundreds of security journals are produced every minute, and I am expected to know them outside of work?”
Indeed, even look at the government’s treatment of young security professionals, with FBI director Comey weighing in with this gem: “I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview.” Which is of course, an understandable concern, if of course it was on the way to the interview and depending on what state… Sorry, conversation for another time perhaps, but the point I want to make, is that it is marginalizing, patronizing, and probably some other kind of zing too, maybe one that insults your mother, I don’t know, but it hardly seems nice. I realize that this doesn’t fall under appearances, but at the same point, isn’t there a tenuous connection there? People tend to have vices and hobbies for the idea of relaxation or stress relief, whether or not those things are actually identified to help, but perhaps if your young applicants want to smoke weed on the way to the interview, you represent a formidable and imposing sight. Maybe, just maybe, the job that you are asking them to do is stressful, taxing, and mentally exhausting to do on its own, without the worry and stress that would come from working for a government that has historically targeted and systematically destroyed those that could have helped to insulate it from a lot of the risks that we see today.
Perhaps instead of locking up hackers, and throwing away the key, you should be lowering the entry barrier, and the pervasive aura of mistrust that you seem to actively work to perpetuate.
I do not feel comfortable referring to myself as a hacker. Not because of the dramatically incorrect stigma associated with that term, and wildly incorrect connotations and baggage that come along with it, but I believe that is a title of the greatest honor, when used by those who deserve it. These are people whose passion is understanding how things work, solving problems, and, I would say in the majority of cases, the ones that are truly deserving, trying to protect and help people. The reason I do not use that title myself? Because when put alongside those that I have been fascinated by in the industry, people like Raphael Mudge at Strategic Cyber, the work that Mitnick has done, and the hundreds, if not thousands of hours of materials through the years that I have read, watched, absorbed through osmosis, and often times, even struggled to comprehend from Black Hat, Defcon, Offensive Security, and so, so many more. And while I definitely know a little bit more than I did when I ran my first “Hello, World” snippet more than a few years ago, I still would not consider myself a developer, or a hacker, or little more than a glorified script kiddie.
But what I do know, completely, truly, from the bottom of my heart, is that you should not alienate those whose looks might be a little outside what you may expect, whose personalities show through a little more than you might like, and who may occasionally, in the privacy of their own home, choose to do whatever the hell it is that adults do in the privacy in their home, because it’s supposed to be just that, privacy. (Notice how I put an emphasis on privacy? I know a few organizations that could take a cue and do just that… ahem) Because, I know that chances are, those people might be so grateful for the opportunity, that they might just work harder, and be more conscientious of your organization’s needs than your nearsightedness might allow you to believe. But most of all, I know what it means to be #BeardedInIT.
