"Boys will be Boys" attitude at work

Hi,

About 4 years ago, I attended an interview for a financial analyst position at a major US corporation in New York. At the interview, there was another women candidate from a top-20 MBA school in the US. She was extremely pretty and she was wearing a super-short skirt for the interview.

It so happened that we both had a minute to chat in the ladies room. I am not able to recollect how, but the conversation ended up about her super-short skirt. That women said, she purposefully wore that skirt because, "afterall, boys are boys".

I didn't know whether she was hired or not, but I wasn't hired by that corporation. Do the "boys will be boys" tactics work in corporate world today?

Shalini

Hi,

You have voiced a resentment that I have been carrying in my heart for years. When I started doing interview rounds in London, I got a few good tips from my husband who had graduated from an Ivy League B-school. We got an expensive trouser suit, smart shoes etc. Then his B-school sent a directive to their female students that it would be better that they wore skirts to interviews, since trousers on a woman were intimidating to the interview board. I found this not merely sexist, I found this plain stupid.

So, I asked a senior lawyer friend, a middle aged lady for some dressing tips. She wore trousers always. I was shocked when she said that I should wear a skirt for the interview and the length she indicated was almost below the suit jacket. I told her that wearing such an invisible skirt would be peddling the wrong assets, and that I would prefer my qualifications to be more evident. She said that these impressions were more important.

I bought myself an ankle length pin skirt, lost a few pounds of weight, and went for the interviews looking decent and dignified. I could hear a couple of other candidates saying that I looked marmish, but I got the job.

cheers
Vidya

Hai,
I am always interested in the experiences of people from all around the world regarding their interaction with the natives. So your thread was interesting to me.
In India, such a dress code would have earned the girl the name of being of loose moral character as Indians judge mostly by the dress. But having to dress scantily to get selected is very unfortunate.
You ladies must be facing such odd situations where your conscience will find it hard to accept what is right in the place you live. Please keep posting such interesting happenings of your life, so that we will get an eye sight of the places which we could not visit.
varloo