Silicon Valley's Gender Balance Woes Start Before People Are Even Hired

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Internships are a great window into hiring trends, and those trends don't look so good for Silicon Valley's efforts to recruit more women. Looksmart is the company behind InternMatch, a platform for students and recent graduates to find internship opportunities. Looksmart recently released a report on the "state of college hiring." One of the most striking findings is the divide along gender lines for preference in industry. According to the report, more than 36 percent of men would prefer an internship in technology, while less than 13 percent of women would.

At a time when Silicon Valley has come under increased scrutiny for the lack of diversity in its employees, this finding should be alarming. It could show that there is something endemic to the tech sector that is unappealing to women, perhaps even just its perception of being a boy's club. It could also be that fewer women feel they are qualified for an internship in tech. Their data shows that over half of students - 63 percent of males and 46.5 percent of females -- have taken computer science classes explicitly to increase their job prospects. Clearly students recognize the importance of technology skills, even if they aren't interested in careers in the field. This also suggests that the remedy can't be as easy as getting more women to take computer science courses. Meanwhile, fields heavily preferred by women over men including marketing and public relations (42 percent for women to 28 percent for men) and health care (21 percent to 15 percent). Government is the field most evenly split, with about a quarter of both men and women saying they would pursue an internship in the field.


Silicon Valley's Gender Balance Woes Start Before People Are Even Hired