Why women won't apply for IT jobs
If they're not a perfect fit, they may not throw hat into ring
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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, over the scheme's ten years of operations, placed 3,850 workers in one-year gigs designed to bridge between the worlds of university and work. The scholarships are designed to make it cheaper and easier for employers to hire entry-level staff, while giving graduates the chance to learn practical skills in the workplace and, often, to upgrade their university-taught technical knowledge to modern skills real businesses actually use.
The scholarship scheme struggles to attract women, largely due to pitifully low enrolment rates in Australian universities. Ridge also mentioned horrifying drop-out rates for women in IT courses, citing research conducted by the University of Wollongong that he said found 72.9% of women are unhappy with the IT courses they pursue.
The few women that do pursue a career in IT, he said, are then reluctant to seek opportunities like ACSF scholarships because they feel it is important to meet every single criterion an employer desires. Men, by contrast, happily apply with only half the skills an employer lists as desirable.
“Industry wants women,” Ridge said. “But women talk themselves out of applying for jobs”. ®
COMMENTS
seen job adds lately ?
most want 5 different specialties in one body. Puts anyone off.
Re: It's always seemed like an advantage for my wife........
What really annoys me is when someone thinks I got a job because of some sort of affirmative action program rather than on my abilities.
My husband and I both work in IT. Occasionally I have applied for jobs where my husband hasn't even bothered to apply because the list of requirements put him off. On other occasions, we actually have applied for the same job and I got it over him. Basically, I am better qualified, but I know that he secretly thinks I got the jobs because I am a woman and have some sort of advantage, rather than having to work twice as hard to for the same respect in the IT field.
Anon, because my husband occasionally reads El Reg. ;)
Re: It's always seemed like an advantage for my wife........
I attend a lot of swinging parties and there was this couple once who both worked in IT...
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