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Comment by taway_1212 | Hacker News Reader

> One concern I have is that my hair is starting to turn grey so I think the HR process will get a bit trickier (planning on moving to more remote work so they can't see the grey :)

I'm thinking of dyeing hair before interviews when I face the same problem.

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I don't think you want to work in a place where they care about such things.

Not all bias is conscious, or intentional. The hair dye may not be a bad idea, just temporarily, during the search. Get a pro though, obvious shoe polish color is, er, obvious.

Would one not have to keep up the dyeing if hired then? You don't think they'll notice a rapid change to grey?

They'll notice, yes. Anecdotal, but my experience is that age discrimination tends to mostly manifest at hire time. They think you're too expensive before even throwing numbers. Or too rigid, etc. Things that shouldn't be an issue once you're there.

As a 48 year old developer with a lot of gray hair...I've never seen anyone with dyed hair where it wasn't pretty obvious. To me it makes you seem a bit desperate.

That's the thing though, if it was done well, you didn't see it. Ask a few women, that already trust you, if they dye their gray... especially the ones you think don't.

Even if they don't explicitly avoid older people, there are biases that they might apply that they're not even aware of.

Kind of funny. I'm going on 40 but look much younger. People think I'm a Millenial. I'd never dye my grey and white hair because looking older helps me close business for my team and I think clients and partners generally feel more comfortable with people that appear to be close in age. If you were client facing they'd want grey hair. But if you aren't the culture seems to disadvantage you. Pretty dumb. I can't discriminate and hire based on having grey, but I can tell you that there are a lot of companies out there that are welcoming. So I think you should rock the grey and you'll land at a better place. :)

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