March 9, 2012

Tech jobs abound, but women still outnumbered in the field

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Microsoft's Cierra McDonald works with middle-school girls at a recent Inspiring Girls Now in Technology (IGNITE) event. IGNITE connects girls with women working in the engineering and tech fields.

By Katie Ormsby / Special to NWjobs
Technology-related career opportunities are thriving in and around Seattle. Many industry leaders, including Microsoft, Amazon.com, Expedia and Boeing, as well as local start-ups are perpetually looking to hire.

But despite the region’s wealth of tech-centric companies, gender disparities persist in the candidate pool.

“Women are definitely still a minority in the tech sector,” says Liz Morgan, a talent strategist at Microsoft.

“Often there’s a small percentage of women on an engineering team or in a meeting, [and that] doesn’t seem to be changing as swiftly as it should,” she says. “Looking at the numbers, the percentage of women awarded computer science degrees has been on the decline since the ’80s.”

Indeed, the National Center for Women and Information Technology reports that the percentage of undergraduate computing and information sciences degrees earned by women dropped from 37 percent in 1985 to 18 percent in 2009.

“Looking around my informatics and computer science classes, there is definitely a significant gender disparity,” says Veronica Ivaniukovich, a senior at the University of Washington. She believes that many women accept antiquated stereotypes associated with the field.

“I have even seen this among my girlfriends,” she says. “They deem themselves to be computer illiterate and say that they could never be in a technical major. But in reality, it’s more of a mental-barrier issue. They fear they won’t be successful at it, while also not having any real understanding of what it is.”

Breaking down those barriers is a goal for Cathi Rodgveller, who founded Inspiring Girls Now in Technology Evolution (IGNITE) more than 10 years ago while working as a Seattle School District nontraditional career counselor. The nonprofit connects school-age girls with women working in technology and engineering careers.

“We need to reach girls at a young age,” says Rodgveller. “We have to give girls confidence.”

She’s found that when you ask a boy if he can figure out a new tool or program, he’ll say he definitely can. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a tool or program he’s ever used,” Rodgveller says. “But when you ask a girl, often she’ll say she isn’t sure, even if it’s something she’s tried in the past.”

Seattle-based IGNITE offers middle and high school students a variety of resources, including field trips to local companies, mentoring relationships, career fairs and job-shadow opportunities.

“Seattle is home to great tech companies,” says Rodgveller. “Girls need to understand that there are women working at Boeing and Microsoft that are just like them.”

IGNITE is offered at every school in the Seattle School District and has spread to other Washington cities, including Snohomish and Spokane, as well as other states and countries.

“We need to do a better job of prepping women for today’s job market,” says Rod­gveller. “We need to break down myths and stereotypes.”

Ivaniukovich agrees that early education programs are key. “In middle school and high school, I definitely had a lot of misconceptions about the field,” she says. “This was simply because I hadn’t been exposed to it.”

The UW senior thinks many young girls unfairly misjudge the tech field as boring and not creative. Ivaniukovich is working on her post-graduation plan by looking for a position in user experience, which she says is “one of the most creative fields I can think of. Not only is the field constantly evolving, but every problem you work on is different.”

Morgan says that even once they’re working in technology, many women continue to feel isolated and like fish out of water.

“It can be discouraging to see such a significant gender gap in the industry, but it also really inspired me,” Morgan says. “I asked myself, ‘What can I do?’ It’s difficult to be one of few women on a team of engineers or scientists, which makes it incredibly important for women working in technology to get together and support each other.”

So Morgan founded Seattle Girl Geek Dinners in 2008. The local network holds dinners that feature speakers and panels with women from tech companies.

“It’s helpful and empowering to hear from other successful women in the field,” she says, adding that one of her favorite events was a panel led by Bing user experience designers.
“It was [an amazing panel of speakers] because it featured women at every career stage. One had recently graduated college, one had just given birth to her second child, and one had been in the field for years,” Morgan says.

Since the Seattle job market is rich with opportunity in the tech sector, why aren’t women pursuing the field at the same rate as men?

“It all comes back to creating a network,” says Rodgveller. “For women and girls, there’s a lack of community and a lack of mentors. We need to show young girls that tech skills will get them places.”

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4 Comments

City On a Shining Hill on March 10, 2012 6:50 PM | Reply

It is not that women cannot do math and be competent coders and testers, it is a male dominated culture at tech companies that prevents them from advancing into management and into the board room. Old fashioned "prejudice".

This is also true for minorities at these companies, who often spend their whole careers not advancing into management and the executive ranks. Too often it is white males at the helm. And, with these companies firing workers when they reach their 40's and 50's in favor of more "energetic" college grads, even white teen males are having second thoughts of science and engineering, knowing they will need to find second careers and not have job security for their families.

Sure, the stock price remains high when companies put that over growing their people, and billionaires are created!

Local Reality on March 15, 2012 11:53 AM | Reply

Much needs to change before women will enter technical fields at the rate of men. Educators show bias in perpetuating the stereotypes that men major in math and science and women just aren't good at these skills rather than assuming all people have the same capacity to learn any skill, and proceeding accordingly.

Women are not welcomed by talent managers at these IT organizations that most often hire male candidates for the tech jobs. I recently tried to engage with a manager at a local tech business for an informational interview, and rather than discussing the normal informational interview topics like type of work, work experiences, training needed, etc...he spent the entire time criticizing my resume which he deemed to be not sufficient to work in a role within his tech company despite the fact that I have over five years of experience doing data mining and data modeling. Could it be because I'm a female rather than a male seeking his career advice? It was certainly a turn-off experience for me, and made me much less interested in pursuing employment with his esteemed local tech company.

Isa Cruz on March 16, 2012 3:02 PM | Reply

While majoring in Engineering, it was through a SWE (Society of Women Engineers) conference that I decided that I never wanted to be an Engineer. I had never seen so many fat and ugly elderly single ladies congregate in one place before.
There's this stigma that 'I'm an Engineer, I'm smart and I don't care if I'm pretty'. Well, I'm growing up, and I still want to be a Disney princess someday. Show me someone that can be both.

Kelly on March 19, 2012 11:34 AM | Reply

I wish I grew up (I was only in high school six years ago) with opportunities like this. My school didn't even have computer classes, so of course I was intimidated of CS. I'm trying to get into local programming classes, but they fill up so quickly, so I'm trying to train myself to little avail.

With so many girls thriving and being directed towards English and Composition I've noticed the high number of women in technical writing. Is technical writing going to be to CS, what copywriting was to ad men (in the 60s)?

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