Hi
I’ve reading some threads about this but I noticed that they are a couple of years old and I wanted to check if the perspective has changed over the years. For years I’ve been wanting to get one on my wrist (which I probably wouldn’t do cause after all the wrist is fairly visible) but I just wanted to hear some opinions and maybe get some advice on the topic, thanks!
I’m sure it depends on the field and geographical location of the work. “Engineering” covers a vast array of job types. My own engineering experience is with large chemical companies and large oil & gas companies. In my experience, many of the engineers I’ve worked with have tattoos but they overwhelmingly tend to be in areas covered by professional attire. For instance my husband (an engineer with an oil company) has a large tattoo on his upper arm; I doubt anyone in his current company even knows about it. I’ve seen lots of shoulder, upper arm, back and calf tattoos during times when people were wearing casual or athletic clothes (company picnics, softball games, running group, etc) but I can’t recall being able to see tattoos in the office. In the oil company I worked for, piercings tended to be conservative as well. For years I wanted to pierce my nose but it would not have gone over well at work. I waited until after I resigned to go for the nose piercing (which got infected and didn’t work out anyway).
As a college student, you probably want to think about things that might limit your career opportunities. My advice would be to keep your tattoos confined to areas that will be covered during interviews.
@traveler98 thanks for the reply! I don’t believe I would like to go outside of California and would like to focus on mechanical engineering / biotechnology if the information is useful. I probably won’t do it any time soon but it’s one of those things that I have been wanting for so long and have so much significance to me that it’s really hard to ignore.
@WeTurnRed, I understand and personally like tattoos very much. I’m too needle-reactive to get one myself (can’t even have a simple 60-second blood draw without almost passing out) but if I could I’d get one or more tattoos. Once you’re established professionally you’ll have a much better idea what’s acceptable for the places you’d like to work, but in college it’s probably better to start off more conservatively. If the wrist tattoo design you want is unobtrusive, inoffensive and can be covered by long sleeves and/or a watch, you would be fine for interviews and might even be fine to show it at work once you’re established in the job. A good friend got a tattoo like that in her late 20s (a personally meaningful word done in small letters on the inside of one wrist, very small and completely inoffensive) and it was not a problem to wear it openly in her professional advertising environment. But for a first tattoo before even landing on a choice for industry, it’s definitely safer to have it done in a place that will be easy to cover if the professional environment favors no visible tattoos in the office.
It really depends on what kind of job you have and where you’re located (I see that you mentioned California, and judging by what I know of California, it’s probably one of the better places to have a tattoo and still get a job), but any tattoos that are difficult to cover (on your hands, neck, even lower arms and wrists depending on what you’re wearing) are probably a no-go before you get out of college land a stable job.
But, there are some really heavy concealers out there that can miraculously cover tattoos if you really want to get it (there’s a $25 one from Kat Von D with stellar reviews, and if you know anything about Kat Von D, you know that she’s practically the queen of tattoos).
I would choose a spot that you can easily cover up if necessary.