Assuming you’re talking about a white-collar office job, if your tattoos are covered by a long-sleeved dress shirt, and you don’t have any down to your hands or up beyond your lower neck, you should have zero issues. Other than that some offices are cool with polo shirts in the summer and you might want to stick with long sleeves depending upon your read of the formality of your office once you’ve been there awhile.

I know a partner at a law firm who has a couple of dozen tattoos including a full chest piece. He’s big into motorcycles and vintage guitars and you’d have zero clue about any of it until you pass from professional colleague to personal friend with him. He’s the top guy in his subject matter and has clients from all over his industry, including in very buttoned down companies.

Random federal gov office: we have no dress code and no tattoo policy. I wear jeans, Nikes, have arm tattoos, and it doesn’t matter. I also know when to dress up and look presentable. It’s gonna be hard for senior leadership to take someone seriously if they wear band t shirts to important meetings or have face and hand tattoos.

Really depends on the field/ work setting you are considering. You'll get better answers if you say more about that.

Plenty of important people here are veterans and having corresponding levels of tattoos. You don’t see a lot of full sleeves on display at offices, but most offices are more formal here than out west so you just don’t see a lot of short sleeve shirts on men in general.

Awesome, thanks!

Makes sense! White-collar office jobs.

Appreciate the input!

Really depends on the industry and company.

Several friends and colleagues at white collar professional services firms or government contacting have sleeves or many visible tattoos. They don’t hide them in summer and no one cares (including clients). It’s 2022 on the east coast too :)

Haven’t seen or heard of any DC issues with tattoos unless it’s like gang sh$t on your face.

Hi! Fellow LA transplant with full sleeve here. I’ve been side eyed a fair amount (in the non profit world) and had one boss who said I had to wear long sleeves despite being non-public facing and basically in a supply closet doing data entry all day. No one else had to wear long sleeves but she did say all women had to wear pantyhose. Yeah that was bad and she wanted all women to suffer apparently “the way she did”. I generally approach with them covered and go from there. DC is definitely more “conservative” in some groups about those things and other people just don’t care, so I’d say it’s a crapshoot for ya. Just beware of August and it’s misery if you end up with a job where you need to cover them.

NGO-sector employee here: I have female colleagues with arm tattoos, although none with full sleeves.

Honestly? I'd wear long sleeves for job interviews, to be safe. Once you're hired, ask your boss what the best way to move forward would be.

I work for local government and I'm a woman with a large chest tattoo and a large back piece. No one says anything. My HR Director has a chest tattoo too. I keep my leg tattoos covered but that's mainly a length of the skirt thing. I usually hide my tattoos until I feel comfortable in a job, then I start letting the corners of my tattoo show through my shirt. Now I take zoom calls in tank tops.

Really don't think there's much of a bias against tattoos here in DC anymore. I have a neck tattoo that comes right up to the lower part of my neck, barely peeks out when I wear a collared shirt or tie and lots of folks have no idea. Granted, I do consulting work for a major software company, so tattoos kinda go with the general IT thing so maybe the field of work may matter.

I used to run my own consulting business and my hiring philosophy was if you are good at what you do, tattoos add cred. If you aren't good at what you do, tattoos can be a negative.

Now I am often front-of-the-room presenter to CIOs of many government and commercial entities and no-one minds at all. I have never been told, "we can't put alex3m3ti8 in front of such and such CIO because he has tattoos." because everyone knows I do an awesome job, am laser-focused on-message and really good at what I do. I've even started to push the boundaries a little bit since pandemic and have a colored Mohawk and don't bother wearing a tie anymore so my tattoo is pretty visible.

I will say that I do have to travel for work occasionally, and I do my best to read my audience. So if I'm traveling to Deep South, I will pack a tie and baseball cap, etc. But here in DC, nah... don't get a sense that anyone cares anymore. Even some of our well-known espionage agencies...mostly not a disqualifier anymore.

I’d say that I work in government and have tattoos that I usually cover up with sleeves/pants. Gen Z il entering the workforce means that jobs are adjusting to tattoos- my boss at my last job famously said “oh tattoos are becoming popular isn’t that funny” and I had to pull my shirt down a bit and explain I had six tattoos she just couldn’t see in business wear. :))

No expert, but in my experience I was shocked by how prevalent tattoos are everywhere else in the US after living in DC for awhile. Depends on industry and friends and who you know and etc. I don't think having them is necessarily a problem. But compared to California tattoos are definitely going to be unusual.

It varies quite a bit I’d imagine. I work at a law firm and a few of us have tattoos. One woman has a few big ones on her arm and she wears sleeveless tops most days, and she said the firm has never had an issue with it. I haven’t worked anywhere else in the area though so I’m not sure how other employers are. Hoping they’re fine with them because I’m planning to get a half sleeve in the spring.