So Many Jobs Available in Technology - Even More Jobs for Females

There is an upbeat story in Techcrunch today by David Kirkpatrick about the current state of technology in the world today.

The fastest-growing resource in the world is computing power and storage.
How To Be An Optimist In A Pessimistic Time

And yet in most every country in the world today, too many people are looking for work. The only significant exception is the technology sector. Every major and minor player in the San Francisco Bay Area is looking for talent.

Although many jobs do require a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) background, significant numbers of jobs are open to people with social sciences and liberal arts backgrounds who are merely quite familiar with techie vocabulary.

I encourage any young person looking for a job to explore the jobs pages on their favorite website. For example, if you go to the website for Electronics Arts you will find a number of positions for quality assurance engineers. Electronic Arts is a major producer of computer games. A quality insurance engineer at Electronic Arts is typically a young man who was a very good gamer. In other words that young person is making good money doing something are addicted to good at doing and they love doing.

As you surf the web you will see that every major website you go to the has images, sound, well-crafted text and is relatively easy to use. This means that the developer of the website has jobs for artists, musicians, editors, anthropologists and more.

What about women in technology? There is an acute shortage of women applying for jobs in technology. It's not that they can't do it. Joining the company just after I did, Carol Bartz was the CEO of Autodesk nearly the whole time I was there. Meg Whitman and Sheryl Sandburg are other examples of ladies who made it to the top of very repetitive organizations. These women have had issues in the business world, but probably no more than most male CEOs. Remember, for example, Steve Jobs being kicked out as Apple CEO.

High-tech companies are hiring, but there aren't nearly enough women to meet the demand.
Addressing The Shortage Of Women In Silicon Valley

Working in technology can have its issues. We all know of young people sitting in darkened rooms staring at screens all day and getting fat and unhealthy.  But as David Kirkpatrick says:

But if all of us who believe in technology’s promise organize our voices more effectively, and work together to understand and exploit its macro impact, there should be wonderful days ahead for the world. Our job is to keep pointing a big neon arrow towards technology as an underutilized tool. There are plenty of reasons to be an optimist in a pessimistic time.

I will add to this thought: if great numbers of the women of the world are to be well-educated and control their own destinies it most likely be through the tools of technology. And those tools will be better guided and more effective when women are involved.

Links:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/11/how-to-be-an-optimist-in-a-pessimistic-time/

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/11/142227097/addressing-the-shortage-of-women-in-silicon-valley