How to Fail at Recruiting Women into Tech Positions
I make no secret of the the fact that I believe the IT community would greatly benefit from having more women in its ranks. This is not out of “fairness,” but because I truly believe we will collectively create better technology, products and businesses with a greater diversity of tech workers. We need the best talent available, and a lot of that is going to come from women.
I’m not alone. From university deans to employers across the country, there are efforts to get more women into the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.
Despite these efforts, and the dire shortage of good STEM workers, the problem seems to be getting worse, not better. So much so that it’s earning headlines in such mainstream publications as Psychology Today, with its recent article “Is It Too Cold To Lean In? Women in STEM.” The article opens by stating that “It’s been a rough couple of weeks for women in STEM” and goes on to cite a number of studies documenting the problems facing women in these fields.
Whatever we’re doing, it’s clearly not enough. We gotta get better.
If you are doing something that’s working, I would love to publicize it so that others can learn from your experience.
