Tech has a lot to learn from PR about attracting female talent
The tech industry can be a hostile environment for women, especially if you’re not lucky enough to be considered ‘one of the boys’. Here, Hotwire’s Mylan Vu – who has worked in both tech and PR – argues that tech has a lot to learn from the world of public relations.
Firstly, a caveat – I acknowledge the PR industry is far from perfect on getting gender balance and equality where it needs to be. Unfortunately, we are not leading by example in having gender balanced leadership representation or salaries.
The following article is not about how great the PR industry is at gender balance. Because that’s simply not happening.
Something the PR industry is undoubtedly successful at, however, is attracting strong female talent – a challenge the tech industry is facing at all levels and across most departments.
This article is complete garbage.
I think you should observe who goes into tech. What do they wear and why? Do they look like models? How many hours have they wasted their time taking risk learning something super boring and difficult. Did you know tech can also be extremely boring and difficult? Do girls really want to work on something super boring?
Dont compare PR or HR, IT is super boring and difficult. It can be offset by the awesome problem solving fun of it but it requires lots of solitude. So boring, difficult and by yourself alot.
Go sell that to girls at school because thats the reality at the cold face. Girls could have always been into IT but it was always their choice. When was the last time you saw a woman go oh i learnt language xyz in my spare time, its not that it doesnt happen but their are alot more jobs they find personally more rewarding. Is it a wonder more women work in community services and nursing? To me thats not a bad thing.
Why is it that even conferences or 1 day intensives around subjects even remotely technical are still 90% dudes.
The Google Cloud Onboard day was a couple of weeks ago — an introductory day talking about building stuff on the cloud. Quite inspirational really. Not really deeply technical but still it was 90% self-selected blokes…
Why is that?
Couldn’t you also flip it and say that PR has a lot to learn from Tech about attracting male talent?