Seems like every few weeks, we get a post asking about tattoos in banking. Then, we get another one on being short. And then one on being fat. And then one on how most MD's are tall.
Here's the deal kids once and for all. You will be judged on everything in this business by people who like to sum up others quickly and come to quick decisions whether it is by your weight, height, tattoos, or even the color choice of your tie. Unfortunately, that's just how it goes. End of story. I'm not saying it's right.
Does that mean you are doomed for having any of these characteristics? No, but you will have to work a little harder to prove yourself. For example, I've never met a short MD who wasn't a complete badasss at his job. I've met some tall ones that I couldn't tell you how they got there. Same goes for anything else. If you are a badass, you can have tattoos or long hair or whatever but make sure that you are awesome at your job first and ask yourself whether your aesthetic preferences are worth making your career a little tougher. No characteristic blocks you from a career in banking but some may make you work just a little harder to prove yourself.
Good post. To add to the framework: the rarity of your characteristic is likely strongly correlated with the penalty incurred.
I've met some short bankers, I've never met one with an earring or a mullet for example. I've met very, very, very few with visible tattoos.
The job is hard enough to get, and hard enough to do. I'd think very hard about what you can control to make it easier if you're serious about a career in finance.
So in other words tattoos, long hair, being short, fat and/or ugly will hamper your career in banking.
But a small dick is still allowed, IM BACK BOYS!!!
This is a bit of a sidecar to the original post and is meant for those people who will read OP and comments above and decide to not do something they really want to do out of FEAR.
Banks are so outdated - fuck your MD's values, fuck your MD's judgment, and fuck obeying just to increase your chance of being a good corporate servant/slave by 0.5% to get closer to being a tad higher up in the rat race. It's time we start changing the culture to how we want it because the world is ours.
Build your own road, if you want a tattoo, get the tattoo, it's not your MD's skin, they can go fuck themselves. You were picked for your job because you were judged to be a potential good banker, so execute on that and deliver results, and live your life outside of work how you want to. Don't let other people decide how you live your life.
This is bad advice. Really, really bad advice masquerading as body positivity or some shit.
"You were picked for your potential to be a good banker" is a nonsense statement. What makes a good banker? Excel ability? Charisma? There is no definition, and certainly at the lowest levels of banking your being picked far more on who you know, where you went to school, etc than on any real judgement of future ability. If you want to make a blanket statement like "you are picked on your potential," then the only possible statement to make is that you're selected because you have many of the same traits as existing bankers, which is a sign of potentially being a "good banker."
Which means, explicitly, you are being hired based on your conformity to an existing ideal, and that ideal is decidedly not one which rewards people with mullets, or tattoos, or what have you. @NoEquityResearch is probably on to something when he states that most senior bankers are tall, white, silver-haired, etc, because that is the traditional image of what an investment banker looks like. Does that suck? Sure. But being short, since you cannot help it, won't harm you as much as active choices which break that mold. As he also says, you have every right to make your own choices, but everyone else has the right to judge you for them. You want to impulsively get a tattoo because you think it looks cool? Great, have at it. But I am 100% going to see that and think you're more likely to make an impulsive decision with my/your client's money, and that may be held against you. Within reason, you have the right to do or say what you will.... but you do not have the right to be free of the consequences of those decisions.