Never felt any of that. One time, however, two or three of us interviewed a young woman

for a role that was more senior than her experience as it turns out. She was from France, had recently moved to NL for her Dutch boyfriend and was now trying to find her first step on the career ladder which is even harder when you're newly arrived from abroad.

But during the interview she came across as very intelligent in her interview, socially very skilled, really clear in her career goals and very authentic. I suggested creating a role for her because we had talked about the desperate need we had to bring in younger people with a bit more enthusiasm, drive and eagerness to develop, to shake up our experienced yet ageing, stagnant and cynical team. Would have been great for us and a great learning curve for her. It made total sense.

But the reaction I got was that I was only suggesting it because she was a beautiful, young French blonde etc etc etc. Stupid thing is that a few weeks later the same people decided we needed that youth and hired a 21 year old male junior member of staff for exactly the role I'd talked about. He was s**t, lazy, hated it, took loads of coaching hours, got a couple of courses on his CV and then f**ked off as soon as his one year contract was up.

I'll never forget that one. Had the poor girl been ten years older or slightly less attractive she'd have been given that role without question.

Posted By: Steve in Holland, Apr 10, 17:14:22