Bossy Girl’s Guide
As a current information technology leader boasting a non-traditional path to a technology career, I see the lack of female and minority representation in my chosen field of technology through a unique lens. A lens that, when introduced to others, resonates strongly as a valid take and missing voice.
“My STEM journey was completely accidental and it took a major mental shift for me to feel capable. If I only knew about all the industry options sooner, I feel like I’d be so much further along in my career.”
Patricia Masterson, Director, Software Engineering – Cisco Systems
The topic is important to me because I see the value and benefits offered by a career in technology for, not only all people, but specifically for more people like me. As a twenty+ year technology professional, I’ve seen some things.
If you missed the first entry in this series, enjoy:
Contemplating technology
…the opportunities and pathways hold no boundaries
Why is it important to consider information technology (IT) as a career choice at any and all phases throughout one’s life journey? Because the opportunities and pathways hold no boundaries. Regardless of past experience with technology or lifelong success with math and science, there is room for all at the continuously growing table.
It may come as a surprise, but it is not all that uncommon for people working and thriving in today’s information technology (IT) industry – from data entry clerk through executive leadership – to find themselves firmly planted in the welcoming arms of the technology field almost entirely by accident.
Quite plainly, the continuously sprawling IT industry is open to and eagerly awaiting the input of all.
My Journey
With my first degree being a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, there are times where I continue to be surprised that I’m considered a respected technology leader and can honestly tout national recognition in some circles.
Thinking back to my college days, I knew what I wasn’t interested in pursuing. Given technology wasn’t even in the distant realm of thought for career-interest consideration, I landed on communication by process of elimination.
Early influence
I didn’t have a home environment conducive to supporting educational decision-making or goal-setting, so I made decisions as any entirely uniformed teen would: what classes sounded interesting? I sure loved my TV production class in high school. So, I landed on communication and embraced each and every educational and outside-of-class experience that evolved before me.
If you are currently perusing degree paths and educating yourself on technology as a career option, you are already leaps and bounds beyond my earliest progress. Keep going.
Meeting my first CIO
After working one or two non-technical jobs post-college – jobs that required deep self-starter skills with a side of persistent authentic communication (thank you liberal arts!) – I found myself recruited to an IT department. An IT department that had a female chief information officer (CIO).
This was my first transformational experience that didn’t even register for me. I mean, why wouldn’t a technology leader be a woman?
I was fresh out of college for the most part. Honestly, that I recall, this CIO was the first technology leader I’d ever laid eyes on. So, with little formal training, I started working on developing websites, programming portals, building databases to empower intuitive access, and similar. It fed my creative cravings. Finding aesthetically-pleasing solutions to challenges. In addition, I worked with and developed for non-technical users. Therefore, my background in communication and genuine rapport with those I was tasked to serve made me a standout in the IT department.
Time to double-down
After a few years, I transitioned to another workplace. One that offered support for an advanced degree as long as it related to my current position.
Education always had a strong position in my heart. For me, it stirred up several emotions – from envy and resentment about what most of my friends experienced to sadness and a lack of fitting in since my family didn’t support me in the same ways but, mostly, my deep excitement for learning. In addition, this workplace benefit signaled the first time that someone (even though it was simply my employer) was offering to invest in me and my future.
Of course I wanted this.
But I knew, amid choosing which discipline would best stack atop my liberal arts undergrad diploma, I needed to be thoughtful and deliberate about my choice of major.
Sure, I’d been working jobs in technology departments for a few years, but technology as a career? Was that me? Was I ready to lock that down?
Recognizing then tackling bias
I knew there was gender bias in the IT field. It wasn’t a secret and I’d had a run-in with bias first-hand. I had applied for a position as a technical project lead for a top software company and I’d been warned then that the team was predominantly male and, due to their backgrounds, would likely be my biggest challenge as they would not have respect for me based on my gender. This was shared in complete transparency. I was asked if that bothered me.
Choose bold
Transformational experience number two, it never occurred to me why that would bother me. Sounded like a personal problem and, if I had a job to do, we’d do the job. I wouldn’t be hired for them to respect me; I’d be hired to manage software projects for a Fortune 50 multinational technology company. I was inevitably offered the job, but turned it down. While I didn’t quite envision my precise future career landing pad, I absolutely did not see project management in the crystal ball.
Embracing bias
So, bias in the IT field. Check. Awareness. Check. Hadn’t really impacted me in my IT jobs, but now we were talking lifelong career. That’s heavy. My experience in the internal graduate degree debate was my first conscious focus on information technology as a lifelong career.
In addition to known gender bias issues, there existed a lack of female representation in technology departments; possibly in response to the aforementioned bias reality. Not a lot of women in IT, I’d noticed. Did possible bias against something I have no control over overshadow decisions mapping out my future? Was a lack of people that looked like me of concern? In both instances, no. In fact, this bias awareness played a fairly strong role in my choice to move forward. In a positive way. To understand that particular why, grasping my overarching why is important.
People want different things out of degrees and career paths. And while we’ll get deeply into this later, from an introduction standpoint, I actively planned how I would use my degree to empower a career that would result in one goal that many would find to be tangential: stability.
Bias as fuel
From childhood through early adulthood, I craved stability. And as I reviewed the statistics at the time for women in technology, I recognized the ever-present lack of female representation. I already recognized that my particular skillset, though wildly different than most of my at-that-time technology peers, and while it garnered a bit of side-eye from the old highly-technical guard, that skillset was receiving respect and inquiring glances from executives in the other areas of the business.
Therefore, in my internal debate, investing in advanced technology education for me would likely result in, at the very least, that interview. That foot in the door. That unique option that so many in human resources and talent management appreciate.
A unicorn surrounded by a field of gray stallions.
Making the decision
So, I decided right then and there that computer information systems (CIS) in the sciences would be my advanced degree focus and I was going to embrace it to the fullest.
Here is what I know: If you focus more on your goals and how to meet them versus what’s impossible about the path forward, you are more likely to get where you want to be and less likely to get paralyzed by why you shouldn’t even try. Others’ behaviors and biases are kindling to my future flame.
In addition, your overarching why and ultimate goal are, and should be, different than mine. What drives you in life, those unique experiences and desires, will positively contribute to success in IT for you. IT grows and improves due to diversity, not despite it.
Bottom line
There is no required straight path to excelling in the technology industry. Is technology for you? Maybe not. There are no absolutes. But if this Bossy Girl’s series is your only investment as you consider your professional future, it just might pay off mightily for you.
IT as a career might not be what you think it is. In fact, it’s likely quite to opposite. And your creativity, curiosity and hunger to live your #bestlife might take you in a surprising – and highly lucrative – direction.
Sneak peek into the next series entry:
What was IT?
The entire premise of this series is to introduce IT for what it is today and, as made crystal-clear by Merriam-Webster, in almost all instances the definition and, most importantly, the perception of IT has not changed one iota, despite IT being inarguably the fastest changing industry in existence.
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