Yesterday a friend of mine called me to tell me that she got the job that she applied for recently. I got very excited and while singing the “Summer night” song, I told her “Tell me more, tell me more…”

She told me that a lady from the company called her, congratulated her, and added that she was lucky because they needed to fill up the gender quota before the end of the year.

There was a small silence and I added “in this horrible Covid economic situation, no one is hiring to fill up a quota, they got you in because you are great and they know that you’ll be a great value added to their team.” We laughed the rest of the conversation but I knew that deep down that sentence she heard from her recruiter had made its impact on my friend.

She, like many other professional women, suffers from Imposter syndrome and that woman may have unintentionally pushed that button. She’ll have to fight with the little voice inside her that tells her she is there because she was lucky, because of the quota, and as a consequence she will not raise her voice as much as she should, she’ll not ask for a raise when she can.

This situation made me think of myself. When I was making my first steps in the corporate world, I also had doubts and I was suffering from lack of self worth but at the time, no one was talking about gender quotas. I remember when I was offered a job to work in the African Development Bank, I asked my employer, who at the time was also my PhD supervisor, if he thought I was fit for the job! Now when I think back I laugh and say “why the hell did I ask him,” but I knew that I got the job because, in addition to my financial and economic analysis skills, I knew French and that was my winning ticket. But I wonder if at that time, I was hearing everywhere in the media, corporate, and entertainment world about these quotas, maybe I would have developed that self doubt.

However, I am not worried for my friend, I know that with time, she’ll find her ground and see her value but I wish I could send a postcard to that HR lady, a postcard with this sentence : “You can bring the best out of people by focusing more on their own merit rather than their gender. In the end, everyone wants to be valued for what they can bring to the table and not to fill a quota.”