Deanna Mullennax spent six months last year looking for a job. Having tattoos, she says, definitely didn't help.

"Tattoos literally change your career," says Mullennax, who is now working at a bakery in Chicago. "They call them 'job stoppers' for a reason."

Tattoos have become more common over the past couple of decades. A Harris poll in 2012 found that 1 out of every 5 adults — 21 percent — has at least one tattoo. An earlier Pew Research Center study found that the number was closer to 40 percent among those ages 18 to 29.

But they are far from universally accepted. Pew found that the vast majority of people with tattoos keep them covered.

"There is a social stigma," says Jenson Whitaker, who works in the oil industry in Amarillo, Texas. "People assume you're ignorant or thuggish."

Click here to read more: http://www.npr.org/2014/02/21/280213268/job-seekers-still-have-to-hide-tattoos-from-the-neck-up