Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
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.
They lack the beard growth required for OSF commits.
Of course, there are not 140,000 new jobs. There are a whole bunch of layoff's, office closures that puts a bunch of programmers out of work [like, say, Microsoft did not too long ago].
There are a whole bunch of already-graduated programmers that are explicitly rejected from these 'new jobs' because they can't afford to work cheap enough.
H1B's to the rescue!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!