Woman, 22, hit on in LinkedIn message by man with 'career older than she is'

A 22-year-old Australian woman, Coco Pickering, has called out an older man's unsolicited LinkedIn message because of his comment about her appearance.

Pickering, who works in business banking according to her profile, recently received a LinkedIn message from a man, which began innocently enough.

"Hi Coco, it's great to connect with you. Looking forward to staying in touch," the person wrote.

"And on a totally different note, may I just say what a beautiful lady you are."

An infuriated and frustrated Pickering shared a screenshot of the man’s message, saying this wasn't “a post I would usually make, but this behaviour needs to be called out because the more times I decide to brush it under the carpet, the more it's going to happen and the more acceptable it will seem."

She added, "You wouldn't say that to someone in an office environment. That's an HR nightmare.

“But because it's behind a screen and a keyboard, I think some people genuinely do forget what is acceptable and what isn't.”

“A professional career longer than I have been alive”

Pickering also called out another disturbing aspect of the message.

"From briefly looking at your Linkedin, you appear to have been working professionally since around 2002 - meaning you have had a professional career for longer than I have been alive," she messaged.

"I genuinely cannot quite believe that I have to explain to someone with that level of life and professional experience that messaging a young woman to comment on her appearance is not appropriate conduct on Linkedin."

Pickering told Yahoo Lifestyle the note left her fuming.

"He disregarded all my achievements and brought it down to what I looked like. I was upset, I was angry — and I'm angry on behalf of all women," she said.

Many responses to Pickering's post were supportive, and some shared their own similar experiences.

“Fully agree with you, this is not right and I’m finding LinkedIn has lost its way,” one LinkedIn user wrote.

But then a few wrote that she shouldn't have shared the post as the man might have been “well-intentioned.”

Pickering was having none of that.

“Women should be able to use LinkedIn to network, build careers and make professional connections without having to deal with unwanted comments about their appearance,” she wrote in her post.

“This is also not an isolated issue. Many women experience this kind of behaviour regularly, sometimes framed as a compliment and sometimes in far more explicit ways."