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Microsoft Uses US Women's Soccer Team To Explain Why It Doesn't Hire More Women
theodp writes: "It is not surprising that the U.S. women have been dominant in the sport [of soccer] in recent years. The explanation for that success lies in the talent pipeline," writes General Manager of Citizenship & Public Affairs Lori Forte Harnick on The Official Microsoft Blog. "Said another way, many girls in the U.S. have the opportunity to learn how to play soccer and, as a result, they benefit from the teamwork, skill development and fun involved. That's the kind of opportunity I would like to see develop for the technology sector, which presents a different, yet perhaps even more significant, set of opportunities for girls and young women. Unfortunately, the strength in the talent pipeline that we see in female soccer today is not the reality for technology. The U.S. is facing a shortage of Computer Science (CS) graduates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, every year there are close to 140,000 jobs requiring a CS degree, but only 40,000 U.S. college graduates major in CS, which means that 100,000 positions go unfilled by domestic talent." Going with the soccer analogy, one thing FIFA realized that Microsoft didn't is that if you want girls to play your sport, you don't take away their ball!
There are more women working at MS that women contributing to the Linux community.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
When I studied CS there were 5 women and 200 guys in my class. With that in mind, complaining about an IT company not hiring many woman is nonsense.
The important part of the article that was left out of the summary is that Microsoft is trying to address the problem by funding programs that encourage girls to get into the talent pipeline at a young age and stick with it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As a tech marketing lady I met observed, the men make the stuff and the women sell it in our industry. She added "maybe that's because we're smarter about getting paid!"
Might help if Microsoft, among others, stopped supporting increased tech H1-B quotas. They tend to depress wages and working conditions, making the "pipeline" we're trying to promote less attractive than, say, marketing. Or doctoring or lawyering. There are only so many really smart people to go around, so one profession's gain is another profession's loss. Design engineers seem to have plateaued around very roughly $100K. That's an OK living, but not exactly what I'd call professional earnings.
So the argument is that because more women don't take Computer Science degrees that results in less women being hired, so don't take Computer Science away from them?
Very few women actually enroll in Computer Science / Engineering Programs, as a result this means that the talent pool from which to hire from contains less females vs males. This doesn't mean that big commons don't want to hire women, it just means that there aren't a lot of qualified women pick from.
Not everyone in IT even needs a STEM degree. A lot of position are more about soft skills anyways. There are also people who thrive in tech positions without a STEM degree.
I even know someone that managed to get promoted into IT off of a factory floor.
This is more about the consequences of large corporations treating their employees like disposable cogs to be laid off by the "Two Bobs" guy during the next business lull. They are no longer wiling to invest in their own people, even the ones that have gone to great effort and expense to be desirable as new hires.
You don't have to be terribly talented to be a tech worker in the large companies. Actually, it helps if you're not.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Why don't you try offering them MORE MONEY, and watch the problem resolve itself! It might not be cool, but classic labor Economics still works in the 21st century.
Of course, Microsoft (or any other big tech company) doesn't really have a reason to do that as long as they can get a bunch of cheap H1-B workers to fill the positions instead.
The story submitter and/or editors clearly had some agenda here in using a misleadingly suggestive title.
Some engineering degrees (Computer, Electrical), math degrees, etc. can be used in lieu of a CS degree provided you can prove you can code.
In fact, a CS degree is not proof that you can code, it is proof that you understand the theory of Computer Science. An associates degree in computer programming from a trade school proves you can code.
More than likely, a CS major can code. Almost certainly a Computer Engineer can code. Lots of people can code. There is no shortage of people who can meet the demands of these 140,000 jobs. In fact, Microsoft just laid off 6,000 people that can fit the bill.
Looking more closely, the article says that 100,000 jobs require a CS degree. So they are being specific here. They need 100,000 people who went through college to understand the theory of Computer Science. Not programs, very specifically they need Computer Scientists. I'm not sure why. In fact, I think that they don't understand the requirement they are asking for. I am guessing they want code monkeys, not Computer Scientists. In which case, we have those available in spades.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Fortunately, in technology as in soccer, nobody has taken away the ball, and the women that are interested in the field have just as much if not more opportunity than males to learn, study and pursue a career in Computer Science, and the whole article is bullcrap.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Is this statistic really true? Are those 140,000 net new jobs, or just job openings that exist for some period of time during the year?
The article cites but does not link to a source for this statistic.
Also, a CS degree is a long, tough slog through dull material that has dubious relevance to most jobs that require a CS degree.
Those are 140,000 openings, so you don't necessarily need new graduates to fill them. You can fill them from other companies (which in theory leaves the same number of openings, but most companies don't fill voids, they just make the other people work harder), or you can fill them from unemployed CS people, of which there are tens of thousands, if not more. There are at least 6,000 more as of a week ago, when Microsoft, the company complaining about the worker shortage, fired 6,000 people.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Enough of the gender/race baiting nonsense.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You don't have to be terribly talented to be a tech worker in the large companies. Actually, it helps if you're not.
Yep. I once worked for a talented manager and he was able to find a place for just about everyone. He put the "lesser" talents on projects that would bore the shit out of the "geniuses". And many times, the "lesser" guys did some excellent work - even genius work.
People are too quick to discount others in this profession these days. It wasn't like that when I started 25 years ago. If you loved tech and learning, you were part of the crowd. Now things have gotten cliquish and even elitist where the entry ticket is a CS degree - others need not apply.
Alright I have to say it... if there are 140k US jobs for CS each year in a decade that will be 1.4 million jobs and will employee over one third the entire population not the workforce which is smaller the population includes everyone. Anyone with a CS degree should be able to get great pay in their field since only 28% of new jobs will actually be filled, and that doesn't appear to be the case.
No I think there is something funny with their claim.
This is an incredibly dishonest way to frame this guy's remarks. Slashdot and Dice should be ashamed.
"every year there are close to 140,000 jobs requiring a CS degree, but only 40,000 U.S. college graduates major in CS, which means that 100,000 positions go unfilled by domestic talent."
And this would be a logical inference if the only people looking for jobs were that year's college graduates.
But, actually, very few job openings are filled by fresh-outs.
Conclusion: mIsleading and false.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Why would anybody, in their right mind, get a CS or IT degree if they knew how shitty the environment was?
Microsoft and every other tech company: We want talent, but we don't want to pay for it. Give us more H1-B workers to cut the average salary, please.
Game corps: We slave-drive our workers, because it's better to take young talent and burn them out so they leave before they get too expensive. Which is why we're always re-inventing wheels.
IT: Dealing with really ungrateful idiots every day, all week, all year. The higher-up the chain, the stupider (with tech) they are.
Why would anyone, male or female, bother to get into this?
Fuck it. Play soccer.
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BMO
#1 the companies want a glut of workers so they can pay them nothing and use them as tools discarding when completed.
#2 Women being slightly smarter than men don't WANT to go into an industry built on virtual slavery and worker abuse. In general they aren't as flexible or willing to commit as much to a career given the option of a family, there are of course exceptions everywhere, but as long as the IT industry is run like a feudal system that thrives on worker sacrifice it is unlikely to achieve a balance of genders. You can't hire those who don't apply, and you can't force women into a educational course they don't want to pursue.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?