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Katherine Ceballos has been looking for a job in her field of digital art and video game design for the last seven months. She has yet to find a good fit.
The recent UW-Madison graduate said she was a first-generation Latina college student, and lacks a network of mentors. If a technology job opportunity does cross her path, it’s unpaid. And when Ceballos has taken part in programming to help her find employment, “I didn’t feel welcome.” It doesn’t help that the tech industry can be cutthroat and competitive, she said.
But Ceballos is determined to keep trying. She attended a job fair at the UW-Memorial Union Thursday — one that men were discouraged from attending. The event was the first job fair hosted by Madison Women in Tech, a nonprofit working to increase female representation in the local tech industry.
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According to U.S. Census Bureau data, women made up 27% of jobs in the fields of science, tech, engineering and mathematics in 2019. That’s despite making up 48% of the national workforce.
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The fair was held as part of Forward Fest, Wisconsin’s largest tech and entrepreneurship festival.
Ceballos said she networked with many of the employers that had booths at the fair and had a positive experience. It was nice to be in a space where her specific needs as a prospective employee were taken into account, she said.
Businesses as large as Verona-based health software company Epic Systems Corp. — Dane County’s biggest employer with 10,000 staff members — recruited prospective candidates at the fair, as well as video game development companies Raven Software, of Middleton, and Filament Games, Madison.
Other businesses included a mix of startups, insurance entities, retailers that work with Amazon and Google’s Madison arm.
The Women in Tech fair was a way to meet female candidates more intentionally, the employers said — amid an ongoing national labor shortage that has spared no industry.
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It’s a shortage that research shows disproportionately impacts minorities, women included, in tech fields that remain male-dominated despite efforts to increase diversity.
Nuanced problem
According to a 2015 study conducted by the University of Washington psychology department, there are several reasons women are underrepresented in tech.
It points to research showing that women may become dissuaded from pursuing a tech career early on because of stereotypical influences and cultural expectations. Further studies have spotlighted the impact of the workplace environment itself, and a lack of belonging reported by female employees.
There’s also evidence of historic hiring bias. One study the report points to found that science faculty were less likely to hire a female candidate than they were an identical male candidate. Another study found that when hiring for tenure track positions, participants were more likely to vote to hire a male applicant than a female applicant with an identical resume. The reasons for the biases are nuanced, according to the study, but they likely also stem from societal perceptions.
Women still carry the burden of child care, for example, said Laura Dresser, a professor in the UW-Madison Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work and Center on Wisconsin Strategy, for which she is also an associate director.
Worsening that burden is the “volatility of schools and child care” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. Affordable child care is hard to come by, Dresser said, and the education system has faced instability as a result of the health crisis.
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Dresser said there are ways tech companies can be more deliberate about diversifying their talent pools, including leadership positions. They can provide child care supports, she said, and structure roles around the individual candidate’s strengths and background. And organizations can help women build their network.
Events like Women in Tech are good examples of the latter, she said, as they provide an access point for businesses to hire candidates they might have previously, and some advertently, overlooked.
Hiring with intent
Jim Halberg, software development manager with Madison online clothing store Shopbop, said the retailer was recruiting for two positions the day of the fair.
It’s been a bit more difficult amid the labor shortage for Shopbop to fill tech jobs, he said, adding that the business has high standards for who it onboards.
“We find ourselves not as diverse as we would like to be,” he said. The company has conducted trainings to make their hiring practices more focused. “We believe if we are more diverse, we will be a better company.”
But for Filament Games, “we’ve been booming the past year,” said Sydney Meyers, a user interface designer for the game developer.
The company had several jobs open Thursday, all listed on a monitor that attendees could scroll through. Filament Games was at the event, Meyers said, because the company supports the Women in Tech cause.
Nicole Brey, product manager for Middleton insurance company Cap Specialty, said the company was trying to get its name out there and recruit female candidates. Brey also touted the company’s remote work policies amid the labor shortage, but said Cap Specialty’s workforce is only 30% women.
Comfort zone
Peyton Turner, UW-Madison computer science and psychology double major, said that finding a job as she enters her “super-senior” year is an imperative — even six months before she graduates.
Impending student loan debt and high rent prices are the main drivers of her search, she said.
She networked with eight companies Thursday, and said it “feels nice” and “less intimidating” to have attended an event catering specifically to women.
Otherwise she would have to “toughen myself up and put myself out there more aggressively,” she said.
Photos: Paintings and sculptures of Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Reminders of Wisconsin
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit
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