Today I met a client with whom I telephone conferenced earlier in the week. He asked if I had been doing this very long. My boss piped in that I had just started with the firm, but that I had been practicing for a couple of years. Client said, "well you couldn't have been practicing very long, you sure don't look very old."
Of course, as a woman, I am always pleased to hear that I look younger than I am. But I'm not sure that my allegedly youthful appearance is a virtue for my professional career. If I had gone straight through college and law school, I could have made partner by now. In fact, a couple of the partners at my firm are my age.
And this isn't the first time that others have assumed that I am a twenty-something. In law school virtually everyone assumed that I was their age. And once they learned I had kids--and how old they were--you could seem them mentally calculating whether I was a teen parent. A few were bold enough to ask my age, and were usually very surprised.
My former boss certainly had no clue how old I was until well after I was hired (and I wasn't about to disillusion him.) And my current boss actually asked how old I was in my interview, and then informed me that I did not look my age. (And yes, I did tell him that he is not supposed to ask age in interviews.)
The thing is, I don't really thing I look so much younger than I am. I don't dress "young." Today I was wearing a cardigan and slacks. I definitely don't have the figure I did at 25. And I don't really think I look younger than friends my own age.
Anyway, the point is that I don't think looking young is helpful to my career. I'm not sure the client I met today would be as comfortable with me handling his case as he would with someone who appeared older. But there is not much I can do about it. I'll just have to prove my competence to gain the confidence of my clients.
P.S. I do not know what was up with yesterday's post. It was a little umm, redundant, or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment