Women in Business: Tech Careers

Tech jobs are becoming more popular with business students of both sexes. However, jobs in IT and other tech careers have long been male dominated. This is beginning to change, though, with several campaigns across the US and UK to recruit more women into tech careers gaining momentum in recent years.

This is positive, as such jobs can have a lot to offer women in business. Here are just some of the ways a woman can benefit from pursuing a tech career.

Avoid macho Wall Street mentality

The testosterone-fueled environment of Wall Street and other financial services hubs, portrayed in the likes of The Wolf of Wall Street and John LeFevre’s Straight to Hell, can be an turn-off for women in business.

Matthew Bidwell, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has studied gender in finance and careers. He reflects that a woman who applies for a banking job is just as likely to get it as a man. However, he also believes that women are put off applying for banking jobs in the first instance, saying; “Women are less likely to apply because they see that ‘there’s nobody like me’ at the senior levels.”

Silicon Valley, with its multitude of jobs in IT, has a much more favorable reputation. Although tech jobs are dominated by men, the macho culture that perpetually sticks to Wall Street jobs does exist to the same extent in northern California. San Francisco, the largest city in the area, is famed for its diverse and accepting society and is regarded to be the most liberal city in America.

Famous Wall Street men such as Jordan Belfort, who was immortalized in the blockbuster The Wolf of Wall Street, are not idolized in the same way in the tech world. In comparison, think about Mark Zuckerberg’s geeky portrayal in the Hollywood blockbuster, The Social Network; hardly an intimidating figure for women in business.

Work-life balance in tech careers

Achievingwork-life balance is difficult in every top sector. A demanding job demands a lot of time and commitment in and out of the office. However, the famed long and intense hours in Wall Street are not as common in tech careers. People starting out on the trading floor work grueling 90-hour weeks on average. With this kind of demanding schedule – achieving a work-life balance is almost impossible.

According to Universum, women who go into jobs in IT expect to work 48 hours per work, which is certainly more plausible.

Jun Li, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, tells CNN Money: “The technology industry always offered better work-life balance, but it wasn't always as competitive with pay compared to finance jobs as it is now.”

The possibility of having children and family plays a significant factor too. Although Wall Street is far removed from the 1980s, when a Goldman Sachs employer famously asked a women whether she would consider having an abortion to save her job, the industry still has a long way to go to eradicate this image completely.

Tech jobs, on the other hand, offer generous leave to women. Companies such as Netflix have recently announced that they will be offering a one-year parental leave package to employees. Both Microsoft and Adobe have also recently improved their parental leave packages too, in a bit to drive more women to tech careers.

Stylish options for jobs in IT

This goes for both men and women. Jobs in IT and other tech careers are seen as a very stylish career choice in the 21st century (see which industries prospective candidates favor broken down by gender as well as overall). The colorful, modern and creative offices at Google are seen as more desirable than the hectic, crowded floor of the New York stock exchange. After all, who doesn’t want to reach a meeting room by whizzing down one of Google’s many office slides? Elevators are old news.  

Harvard Business School’s Luciana Baigun, has recognized this surge in popularity for tech jobs: "Tech has become bigger as a sector and more appealing to everyone – it's just more popular.” Even Baigun’s own HBS, once a top feeder of Wall Street, has seen a surge in those who want to work in tech.

It can only be hoped that this surge in popularity is matched by gender parity in the tech firms in Silicon Valley and beyond.