Tattooed jobseeker Mark Cropp mulls over offers of work

Mark Cropp opens up exclusively to the Herald Focus about his life and how he got that face tattoo

A former prison inmate who shot to fame last week after revealing his enormous face tattoo was stopping him from getting work says he has had only two concrete job offers.

Cropp said he had been inundated with comments after posting the picture of himself and his frightening DEVAST8 tattoo on a Facebook jobseekers page, and it was hard to keep track of them all.

Several commenters had offered to employ him, including in roles outside New Zealand. But only two had resulted in concrete job offers where he spoke to an employer.

Cropp said a claim in the Daily Mail Australia that he had received - and rejected - at least 45 job offers was not true.

He said he had told the Daily Mail Australia he had had "a few" job offers and was still waiting for "the right one to come about".

Part of the problem was that some of the positions required him to have a car.

"Until I get my first pay cheque and get a car I won't be able to get myself around," he said.

But Cropp, a 19-year-old father, has accepted an offer to have the massive inking removed for free.

An Auckland company contacted him after reading about his plight. After previously refusing to have it lasered off by New Zealand prison authorities, he now says he'll get rid of it before he starts work.

Scaffolding contractor Douglas George Hebert is one of those who reached out to Cropp last week, offering him a NZ$22-an-hour building-site job.

"We've all made bad choices, doesn't mean we are bad people," Herbert told the Herald.

"I'm a big brown man covered in tattoos myself, and I have been on the receiving end of judgment from people who don't even know me.

"All my guys have got pasts, but we're all united on the job site, where you are only as good as the man beside you."

Cropp says he is considering taking up the scaffolding job once the tattoo is lasered off. He also needed permission from his probation officer before he could start, he said.

Cropp got the tattoo one night in prison while drunk on home-brew. It was given to him by his brother, who shared his cell and used a makeshift needle and fermented food to make the ink. It took eight-and-a-half hours to complete and Cropp admitted some of the motivation was to avoid being bullied by other inmates.

"It was only supposed to cover up what was originally on my jawline," Cropp said.

"Once it was started, I thought, I can't go back on it now.

"I wish I had stopped while the outline was there to be quite honest."

Applying for work after prison, he said prospective employers had laughed in his face after seeing his tattoo, and he turned to Facebook in desperation.

He was jailed as a 17-year-old for aggravated robbery, claiming he needed money to support his pregnant girlfriend. He is now battling to get off the dole and reclaim his young daughter from state care.

"I was quite angry at myself because . . . I said I wouldn't let her do it alone. And I pretty much failed.

"I didn't want my daughter to have the same upbringing that I did."

- news.com.au