Why women won't apply for IT jobs Women won't apply for IT jobs unless they are certain they meet every single criterion for the gig, according to John Ridge, Executive Director of the Australian Computer Society Foundation Trust Fund (ACSF). Ridge and the ACSF run a national Work Integrated Learning scholarship scheme for IT workers in Australia and have, …
It seems to me that a number of people have considered that, but are asking a more fundamental question: what can we do to make IT more interesting to capable people (irrespective of gender [& other irrelevant criteria]).
My wife & I will be doing our best to overcome our own social programming to ensure that both son & daughter have as broad a knowledge base as possible. That means being interested in what they're doing and ensuring that they get the chance to try out lots of different subjects and activities both in and out of school.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/tech-careers/why-bad-jobsor-no-jobshappen-to-good-workers/
"One of the things that used to happen is that there were HR managers in recruiting who would look at those requisitions and say, “You know, do you really need that? Do you really think you’re going to be able to find somebody like that?” And there was push back. Those people have largely been eliminated through successive downsizing, so there’s nobody there to buffer those expectations. The next thing that happens is those requirements get built into recruiting software, and the recruiting software is a necessary device now, because employers have made it easy to apply for their jobs.
In the past, they wanted lots of applicants, so now they’re overwhelmed by applicants, so now every company will tell you they’re getting thousands or tens of thousands of applicants for positions. You couldn’t possibly screen them all by hand, because you can’t look at them all, so they use automated systems to do the screening. But the screening is never as good as somebody who has human judgment, and the way screening works is you build in a series of typically yes/no questions that try to get at whether somebody has the ability to do this job. And a lot of that ultimately ends up, it’s all you can ask about, is experience and credentials. So you end up with a series of yes/no questions. And you have to clear them all, and I think people building these don’t quite understand that once you have a series of these yes/no questions built in, and the probabilities are cumulative right? You have to hit them all, then you pretty easily end with no one that can fit."
So say that the odds are 50 percent that the typical applicant will give you the right answer in terms of what you’re looking for for the first question, and a 50 percent that they’ll give you the right answer to the second question. Well, then, you’re down to one in four people who will clear those two hurdles, and once you run it out to about 10 questions, it gets you down to about one in 1000 people who would clear those hurdles. And by the way, the first hurdle is usually, What wage are you looking for? And if you guess too high, out that goes, right? So then you’re at the purple squirrel point, where at the end of the day, you find that nobody fits the job requirement. So in the book I describe one anecdote some employer told me about having 25 000 applicants for an engineering job, a reasonably standard engineering job, and the recruiting process indicated none of them were qualified to do the job. How could that happen? Well it’s not that hard once you start building in these yes/no algorithms, and you run out the list, you end up with nobody who can get through.
I wouldn't just blame the HR process in not being able to recruit more females into IT, you could apply the fact that IT within the education system is pants before university. It was during my school days (almost 10 years ago). We had IT teachers that couldn't even teach IT, even to the basic level of Word/Excel/Paint. This was back when I started secondary school and most of us knew more than the teacher did. This in turn probably caused a lot of females to struggle and really not have much confidence in the subject. After that, none of us touched IT (unless the subject required it to produce some work) until year 10 if we took it as a subject within GCSE.
Most of the girls I remember from my GCSE course just did it as no other subject interested them within the technical/business area (design tech, cooking, business studies). Again, the course was a very basic learning curve of how to write documents, do a few macros in excel, use a vector based imaging package and a few other things. Replicated from my year 7 experience, the teacher was a failed IT tech who'd turned to teaching and really didn't teach anything useful (actually, he was very much like David Brent and looked like him!). I managed to help some of the females who were left behind by the teacher. After that, I can't imagine many were inspired to go to IT at sixth form (just a smaller number based on the same principles). For all of the females, none of them did the double award to so interest in the subject that only 5 of us did.
I can't imagine many of the opportunities during that time were very appealing to go on to university (I remember none of them did). The problem is essentially a minority of females are becoming more difficult to hire resulting in less in the IT field. Maybe the UK needs to spend some money on the IT Apprenticeships/Scolarships outside uni to drive more females into the industry. I certainly did it that way with my self-interest in IT. Sometimes people need a carrot on a stick and a push in that direction.
Good points well made sir!
I started secondary school in the mid 90s. By the time they transitioned our IT classes from Mac Classics with Clarisworks onto PCs with Office, those who were excelling (pun?) in IT were generally those who had nagged for a PC (486/Pentium) at home - generally Male. These were the days before everyone had a PC, they were still seen by some as glorified toys.
Now that more or less every house has at least 1 computer and broadband, I would be interested to see the result of school IT courses now that using a PC is no longer 'scary', future university classes, graduates should be more balanced. In theory.
Very true! I forget we started with no internet in 1998 with slow pentiums running Windows 98 and a god awful RM login system. Actually, we spent most of our IT classes trying to do naughty stuff with them (such as renaming all the system properties screens with a custom logo and mystery text). That's how much we took notice of the IT teacher who couldnt teach. This is why companies looking for a better balance in their IT dept is not going to find it. My assumption is that females saw IT as a specialist subject and didn't want to get their hands dirty with messing around with UIs and code unlike their male counterparts.
Maybe we might see a change in direction slowly with more female IT teachers making a better impression and being seen as better idols. The theory will only work if teaching improves. It's still the achilles' heel of the whole process of developing better IT candidates of both gender. The recent cutbacks or idle budgets won't help schools build a lab server room to inspire the next gen. Most don't know until they get into a job or take serious interest at home to where it all starts. That's why I mentioned a better apprenticeship/sponsored scheme to help kick-start more people into practical IT.
My current year 9 class size 26 - 2 female 24 male
My current year 10 class size 28 -1 female 24 male
My current year 12 class size 20 -1 female 19 male
My collegues photography class (y 9 only) 24 - 16 female 8 male (those 8 boys are also in my class)
So someone earlier mentioned listening to the female I.T person on women's hour (UK radio programme for women..) talking about this very story. Her main point seemed to be 'we need more women in I.T, and don't worry, there's loads of non-programming jobs!'.
Now, while that's true, it seemed to be completely the wrong message. Surely it should be, 'there are programming jobs, and if you learn how to program, you could do them'?
I think if I was female, and of a delicate constitution (as this report seems to imply), I'd be pretty put-off by a proponent of women in I.T. saying essentially, 'programmings obviously too difficult for you, but you could always do something easier instead'.
(btw, I don't think programming is harder than everything else in I.T! But in my opinion, that's how it came accross).
Not everyone who studies Medicine wants to be a Radiologist. Nor everyone wants to be a heart surgeon.
There seems to be a perception, including during university courses, that to work in IT means to be a programmer.
Other career roles within IT should be publicised for those who may not enjoy programming - QA, Support, Technical Writing to name just a few.
isn't it interesting that there is still a Women's Hour' - where is the Men's Hour ?
oh the irony of a feminist type; bitching about lack of women in category x work; on a WOMAN's programme ? And none of them realise how sick this is ?
It could never be that for what ever reason (genetics; some -ology or other; human nature) most women do NOT want to be (software) engineers ? Heaven forbid they could even consider that
>>isn't it interesting that there is still a Women's Hour' - where is the Men's Hour ?
Much of TV is men oriented, have a look at *most* series, films, documentaries, is the lead/hero male or female? if there are women there, how important is their role? are they just eye candy? name the female superheroes.....
The reason there's no "Men's Hour" is that most media is already dominated by men, there's no need.
>>oh the irony of a feminist type; bitching about lack of women in category x work; on a WOMAN's programme ? And none of them realise how sick this is ?
Sick? well, it's hardly going to be mentioned on male dominated programming is it? you'll also find that they won't be mentioning how most people operating dust carts are men, but they might mention how politics are dominated by men... think about this...
>>It could never be that for what ever reason (genetics; some -ology or other; human nature) most women do NOT want to be (software) engineers ? Heaven forbid they could even consider that
Genetics? human nature? you obviously don't think you're an idiot. So let me explain, the reason why they wouldn't consider that is because it's fucking stupid.
Genetics? human nature? you obviously don't think you're an idiot. So let me explain, the reason why they wouldn't consider that is because it's fucking stupid.
So there are no differences between men & women - you know; body bits; hormones etc. And it is well documented that hormones affect mood; and mood affects cognitive functions (and vice versa).
And the results are STILL not in on the nature/nurture discussion.
Let me explain - we do not know; nor do we understand exactly why the observable differences (other than the obvious body shape and purpose) occur. Why do men and women exhibit different learning strategies for instance - it isn't all nurture either.
So go on; explain why so few women go into industrial jobs; but stream into what could be broadly classed as 'caring' jobs - and vice versa ? And not just in western cultures.
And are you really suggesting that all those news readers and weather presenters (UK) are just chosen because they are attractive looking women ? But when there were only men in those jobs that was also proof of male chauvinism. Examine that - male dominated - because men won't let women in; 50/50 split (though the BBC now seems to have more female news/weather presenters) - only because the women are there to titillate the men. What a sexist attitude; don't you believe that those women are there because they are at least equally capable (especially in the BBC) ?
It is quite possible that men and women have a bias towards certain job types. Since men and women are demonstrable different physiologically and chemically; it is not unreasonable to observe they are different in many other ways too. Since this deals with human populations; not individuals; the odd male carer and odd brilliant female engineer do not disprove the thesis; on the contrary; we would expect each sex to exhibit a full range of human behaviours - just with different distributions. You must be really unobservant not to have observed atypical and typical gender differentiated behaviour; in fact so called comedians made/make good living out of this (depending on the current acceptability of certain kinds of jokes).
By the way; you demonstrated the reason they(you) wouldn't consider that - because you are to lazy to do your own research and thinking; because it runs counter to your own (un-proven) beliefs; so just follow the current fashionable meme. To call something 'stupid' is an ad hom and does nothing to demonstrate your thesis; only people who don't know/can't be bothered descend to such strategies; and I am sure you could find some real counter arguments if you bothered to actually think..
@peter_dim
>>Let me explain - we do not know; nor do we understand exactly why the observable differences (other than the obvious body shape and purpose) occur. Why do men and women exhibit different learning strategies for instance - it isn't all nurture either.
You have explained NOTHING, this is an argument from ignorance, worse than this you've even excluded "nurture" with absolutely no basis at all.
>>So go on; explain why so few women go into industrial jobs; but stream into what could be broadly classed as 'caring' jobs - and vice versa ? And not just in western cultures.
You've already made you mind up that "nurture" is not the significant factor here, so I suspect that there's really no point in explaining to you how socalisation affects work choice, let me give you some pointers;
In wartime women were farm labourers, factory workers etc. this was imposed by society
It's geek chic for men to be technical, but girls are like Velma from Scooby Doo
Many cultures have different demographics - many asian women are scientists
Times are changing, most medics (trainee doctors) are female now
Times are changing, compared to 50 years ago we have 10x as many male nurses now
But, this article isn't about ship building, or childminding it is about women in IT jobs, what possible reasons are there for a person to avoid IT, just because they have a uterus? And let me repeat, I still think that you are fucking stupid if you think it's biology that drives women away from IT.
I take on at least 2 graduates per annum as trainee (permanent) web developers. I expect them to stay at least one year (though they are not legally obliged to) and pay them a corresponding rate, which for the first six months equates to about £140 per diem. By at least the sixth month I expect them to have picked up Javascript,/JQuery, PHP, MySQL, XML, HTML5 and CSS3 to a reasonable extent that they can work on a major PHP site on their own.
To date I find that while the application ratio is around 9:1 male to female the ratio for fast learning, diligence and competence is a reversal of that. I now have 3 graduates from the past 2 years who have stayed - 2 female and 1 male and I am taking on another 2 graduates this September - 1 male, 1 female.
"Women won't apply for IT jobs unless they are certain they meet every single criterion for the gig,"
Maybe in Australia. I wish some of the women in IT would at least make sure they meet 50% of requirements - i wouldn't have such terrible female VP of IT at my previous place of work.
“Industry wants women,” - that's a problem: "industry" should want qualified people no matter gender. I was lucky enough to have a very good female manager at one time, i also had a number of very smart and capable female colleagues - just wish their gender wasn't a factor when they were hired (it was, sadly).
I always read these 'women in IT' type articles with interest, having been the focus of the discussion myself for about 10 years. However they always seem to assume a deep seated raft of sexism that I simply have never come across. In whatever companies I worked at, I've invariably been the sole woman in the department, and can't recall a single instance of when a colleague has been sexist.
However the real problem has been from the users. Countless times people seem to think I'm incapable of shifting kit, crawling under desks to check cables or sort out the most basic of issues. I've had people simple refuse to speak to me on the phone saying they didn't want to log a call with a secretary or demanding to speak to 'one of the guys'.
It seems to me that the industry has no issue with women doing IT, but the society as a whole does.
I won't forget any time soon the guy who told me over the phone "Whoa, you're the first woman I talk to who knows what a BIOS is". I managed to resist the urge to call him names or tell him he should step out of the server room every now and then, and just replied I knew plenty more.
Thankfully this type of remark was never a common occurrence, and indeed this only ever happened in end user facing roles.
I agree - i've seen far less hostility (really - almost none) towards women in IT than say in gamers community.
One thing that's really pisses me of about SOME women in IT - thinking they have more to prove than men (for all women out there!) - that's a BS, just show me you can think and learn and handle the pressure. If you can do that - you'll earn my respects.
what pressure? Yes I agree that some jobs apply 'pressure'. But that is really just bad management to any given situation. You should personally base 'your' time, in any given day, on what you like to do. That includes the work load, the people you work with and lastly your realistic aspirations.
(PS before you think I'm all lovey dovey left-wingy with communist leanings, I generally think HR departments and recruitment agencies - mostly populated by women - are shite. Maybe some sort of swap around is in order).
if the percentage of jobs offering even a modicum of fulfilment wasn;t vanishling small, you might find people eager to do them. i'm sorry to say, if you are in the older generation looking to hire one of my generation as cheap labour, you can fuck off. we know what you're doing.
It's how it works. Your offer your time and skills and get some money in return, generally in function of your time and skills. Negotation is up to you.
Don't get the wads of cash you think you are entitled to? Not getting enough on-the-job entertainment?
Well, open your own business.
with an attitude like that you are no doubt one of the idiots receiving charity (the dole) because you don't have a job. And; no doubt; you will refuse to do work experience because you aren't being paid -- well you ARE paid - you are paid the dole - it is time you got off your bum and worked for the charity that we apparently have to give you. You however do not deserve any of my (tax) money.
Of course if you got some basic (or VB or DBA) experience you would be eligible for a more interesting job at higher pay - but then you still haven't worked out what cause and effect is have you ?
To any female reg reader who's thinking of taking a job (or starting a career) in IT, its not all doom & gloom out their. "Lady Lien" works for a real nice company. She is treated as equal to anyone else at her skill level. So don't be put off applying for for a job or taking a qualification.
Only bad thing about "Lady Lien" working in IT..... its hard to hide the "Grumble" ;)
quoting ...
* most want 5 different specialties in one body
* cycnical job ads written to perfectly match the only (internal) candidate that can fill the job
* disconnect between the insane HR departments and the real world
I disagree with these points made early on {repeated later}. Some people I know deliberately ask for more than they need because they only want the best and most experienced developers applying. The perception is that the best developers are several times more productive than the average and that the worst developers will actually cost you by writing rubbish.
[All this is from the kind of informal survey results I build in my mind from having talked about recruitment (with others) for several years now. I go out to several cons and at least 25 after-work meetups each year,]
The issue is the derth of women coders everywhere and who's actually addressing that issue here? If they want cheap techies from outside the UK why aren't they bringing in cheap female techies?
HR don't specify technical requirements - techies do that.
I personally wander how severe the anti-IT peer pressure is that women exert on others?
PS: My comments refer to dev roles.
[q]I take on at least 2 graduates per annum as trainee (permanent) web developers. ... about £140 per diem.[/q]
£140 per diem is far more than women can expect to earn in a nail bar or behind a retail counter, etc.
He taking on recent grads with no actual experience. Why is he unable to recruit any women?
Women out there - please tell us what you want!
Women generally don't go into IT for good reason. IT work does not come wages and prestige that similarly demanding jobs do. IT does not generally provide the job security that other similarly paying jobs do.
The IT sector would do well to avoid turning off young men in its eagerness to attract young women by any means possible.
Does the nursing sector wring its hands over its inability to attract young men? No. The live with it. IT should do the same.
So we should continue bracketing jobs with gender and get on with it? Live in the real world mate. Male nurses provide strength to help carry patients and so forth when 2 or 3 females are needed to do the same job. A balance of both would make both IT and nursing industries much better to work in.
Some years ago my company was running a graduate recruiting programme and I got to talk to a number of female graduates at recruitment fairs but when it came time for applicants we did not get one female applicant. My theory is that we were a fairly small company with few benefits or career potential, so we could not attract any females. There were so few of them in the market they knew they could cherry pick from all the firms offering positions, knowing that the HR depts would be falling over themselves to get more female engineers in their company. Go to the really big companys and see how many females work in IT related jobs there (IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google) and note how much better there jobs are in terms of wages and benefits. Why settle for less.
The corollary of this is that women don't need to grasp at straws so much when looking for jobs and would rather be in a role they know they can do (and thus avoid all that chauvinistic crap about not being good enough) and also avoid facing humiliation at an interview (usually involving chauvinist male IT experts) having to BS their way past the recruitment barriers. I do believe that BS is one area where men are better suited and more experienced.
Paris because it's the only icon that has any vaguely female perspective.
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