The tech world has long had a gender imbalance, and Stanford University recently published an experiment showing how we can improve women's chances of joining the tech industry by!
The imbalance in the sex ratio of employees in the technology industry is not a new issue. But do you know the actual numbers?
According to the research institute Exploding Topics, less than 30% of women are employed in the technology industry, and the biggest obstacle women encounter when interviewing is the relatively little practical experience, which deters HR managers.
It is worth noting that Stanford University recently developed an online incubation program that can effectively improve the chances of nearly 50% of women getting jobs in the technology industry.
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Accumulated three months of practical experience and increased the acceptance rate by nearly 50%.
"Talking about what you've built is more interesting to people than just talking about college courses."
In view of the low female technologists, the reason is the lack of developed works when they first enter the workplace.
Susan Athey, a professor at Stanford Business School, and Emil Palikot, a postdoctoral researcher, teamed up with the Polish organization Dare IT to design a three-month online incubation program to build a portfolio for women who have invested time in learning IT skills but still haven't been successful in getting tech-related jobs, proving to tech executives that women have the development experience they care about.
From the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2023, about 1,600 women have participated.
The study program found that female participants who completed the online incubation program were 45 percent more likely to find tech or technology-related jobs within four months than non-participants.
This program is designed based on three principles:
- Do it online to reduce costs.
- Focusing on the interaction between participants, encouraging participants to discuss and establish contacts with each other, in order to alleviate the dilemma of insufficient teachers, because the Polish organization Dare IT's original mentoring and employment program was mainly conducted one-on-one with teachers and students.
- Focus on projects that can be implemented directly in a business environment: The incubation program not only helps the participating companies design the program, but also requires the execution of six projects such as the U/X design of the mobile app. During the project, in-house experts will be sent to review the work and provide suggestions for modifications.
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Because the study looked at participants in both the Polish organization Dare IT's existing mentoring program and the online incubation program, researchers Susan Athey and Emil Palikot found that women from small towns had better opportunities to get tech-related jobs under one-on-one mentoring than those who participated in the online incubation program.
On the other hand, participants in large cities are the larger beneficiaries of online incubation programs.
The study was planned to be grouped according to the participants' place of residence and degree level, and compared with the random group, those who lived in the metropolitan area and participated in the development task plan increased the chance of finding a job in the field of science and technology by another 9%; Those who live in non-metropolitan areas and participate in one-on-one mentoring programs will receive an additional 13% increase.
It is clear that job seekers who live in non-metropolitan areas and do not have a degree have better benefits than participants with a degree.
Susan Athey points out that the impact of the technology industry is beyond imagination, not only on the economic level, but also on society as a whole.
"The impact of technology is only going to grow, so it's important to ensure a diverse representation of the tech industry, including providing well-paying jobs for women and other minorities, while ensuring that technology operates fairly."
"A diversified technology industry will also make society more diverse."
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Perhaps, it is necessary to change this structural problem and help underrepresented job seekers, including women, to succeed in the technology industry, still relying on society as a whole and removing professional assumptions about different identities.
But let's not be too pessimistic, this attempt can still be a glimmer of proof that we can still do something in the face of the gender imbalance in the tech world.
It is expected that this gentle and strong force from women will slowly rise, and diversified gender views will also be injected into the technology circle, and gradually pull the backwater of male ownership in the technology circle, and finally one day the technology circle will no longer be equated with men.