Featured Archives

January 13, 2023

0

5 Sustainable Actions To Drive Your Career & Community Forward in 2023

By Iva Kubickova | Featured

At WNORTH, our resolution is to continue on our path to building more women into positions of power while keeping community support as the building block of our success.

We asked our high-performing members what makes the biggest difference in their lives and careers, and here’s what we’ve learned:

1) Expand Your Network Across Industries

Build a network of driven women across industries who inspire you, and stand for what you believe. This will help you see the bigger picture, build community outside of your usual area of focus, and offer perspectives to bring back to your job.

Tip: Attend a WNORTH meetup to make new connections instantly,

2) Dedicate Some Time To Build Your Negotiation Skills

Communicating your wants and needs is critical in getting the pay, recognition, and work/life balance you deserve. Like everything, negotiation is a skill you can craft.

Tip: The WNORTH Leadership Hub has countless resources from Negotiation Experts to help you become a master negotiator. We can also connect you with women in our network who can help you get the results you want.

3) Advocate For Other Women

We don’t always need to go outside our way to support those around us. Sometimes, it’s as simple as looking for a person that could use an extra connection, support or advice in or outside of your organization. Alone, we can’t do so little. Together, we can do so much.

Tip: Join a community in or outside of your organization that will connect you with women looking for resources.

4) Join Peer Mentorship Programs

Who can teach you better than women walking in your shoes? Peer mentorship groups are powerful as they enable you to meet regularly with likeminded ambitious women working on the same goals, helping you to get there faster.

Tip: Our Forums run three times a year, giving you a chance to meet up to 15 ambitious women who will become your core group of success.

5) Increase Your Influence By Elevating Your Personal Brand

Women are notorious for undervaluing their achievements. Let’s shout them out the roots by utilizing social media tools like LinkedIn to not only share your wins but (and that’s our favorite) stand up for women around you and celebrate their achievements.

Tip: Dedicate time weekly to building your brand online and connecting with other professionals. Our platforms of choice include the WNORTH Membership Portal and LinkedIn.

Picks from our Newsletters

The WNORTH Newsletter connects you with resources and news from within our network and our fabulous members and gives you early access to events open for the public, exclusive discounts, and more.

November 25, 2022

0

The Role of Mentorship in Creating More Female Tech Leaders

By Iva Kubickova | Featured

As a leader, what can you do to help women in the tech industry succeed? How can you bridge the digital divide and lift others with you as you reach new heights?

Many women in leadership are asking these questions. After all, despite the myriad of life-changing technological advancements, a lack of female leaders in tech remains outdated. And although the percentage of women in senior IT leadership positions grew from 21% to 24% between 2018 and 2019, recent figures showed that women still have a small overall share of IT leadership jobs. Women account for only 16% of senior-level tech jobs and 10% of executive positions. This indicates that there are still significant gender gaps in tech leadership positions.

Of course, overcoming gender biases must be rooted in women who exhibit competence for the role. Large tech organizations seeking executive leadership candidates expect you to be able to apply the key tenets of organizational leadership in a very effective manner. This is because leadership tasks expect you to devise effective goals and develop policies that will progress the organization to greater heights in an already competitive tech industry. However, educational background alone is not enough to equip leaders for this daunting role. Any individual who wants to attain a top executive position must have additional mentorship experience to ensure they have well-rounded skills, regardless of gender.

In this article, we will discuss the status of mentorship programs for women in the tech industry and look into how to develop a female-focused training project that will help you retain and support your women talent.

Why Are Mentorships for Women Important?

Having a reliable mentor in the workplace helps you learn the tasks and responsibilities of the job quickly. This is because you get the chance to be exposed to real-life situations, allowing you to apply your skills and knowledge in solving them. If you’ve been mentored before taking a leadership position, you can consider yourself lucky since not everyone has mentors to guide them, especially women in tech.

A study on gender diversity in STEM disciplines revealed that 48% of women in tech felt that the lack of female mentors was one of the biggest barriers at work. In addition, 42% thought there was a lack of female role models in their workplace. These results are concerning because female mentors and role models can have a powerful impact on the feeling of belonging in the workplace, particularly in a male-dominated industry.

How Can Mentorship Programs Support Women in Tech?

If mentorship programs are available for female employees, the chances of more women entering the field and achieving leadership roles will increase. This is evident in an article on successful mentoring of women, which claimed that mentoring increased the retention rates of female employees and elevated their success in obtaining promotions at work. Moreover, mentorships helped them minimize their feelings of isolation and contributed to increased self-confidence and work engagement.

In fact, a survey from a Forbes article shared that 89% of women who participated in mentoring schemes felt empowered by the experience. It just shows that fostering positive feelings through mentoring in your workplace is a factor in encouraging and creating more female leaders in the tech industry.

How Can You Develop Female-Focused Mentorship Programs?

Developing an effective mentorship program requires you to consider your target demographic since this will help you create a suitable project that addresses the needs and characteristics of the mentees.

When designing a female-focused mentorship program, you must remember to involve your junior female employees in the discussion. Because who knows more about their struggles in the workplace than they do? Besides involving your employees, here are other tips you can do to develop a successful female-focused program:

Define your program’s goals and expectations.
By doing so, you can start your program on a clear and strong foundation. This will make it easier for other women to know about your efforts.
Find and match potential mentors with mentees.
Just having a mentor is not enough. For women to flourish, it’s important that your mentorship program take personalities and nuances into consideration.
Evaluate the impact of your program.
Regular evaluations are crucial to ensure that your initiatives are reaching their goals. Through these you can continue to fine-tune your program and enhance your relevance.

Should You Mentor Your Fellow Colleagues?

Lastly, it’s worth considering having women leaders like you mentor junior women team members. Being mentored by women in senior positions allows female employees to realize from the start that gender has no bearing on business acumen.

This realization from early on in their careers gives women a broader and more rounded perspective, which is an advantage for growing their careers.

Similarly, in our recent interview with Esther Ayorinde-Iyamu, we shared more about the importance of connecting with fellow women leaders. This was specifically important for Esther, as she shares the lessons she has learned herself to help other women accelerate their careers and break through the glass ceiling.

As a woman leading in your field, you can also impact the mindset of female employees by being an example of a woman succeeding in tech.

Ultimately, mentoring your women colleagues in the tech industry will not only disrupt the male-dominated sector, it will also open opportunities for them to grow and lead in the profession they love, inspiring younger women to pursue a career in the field, too.

About the author

Jacquie Beller is a freelance writer and women activist. She believes that women have the power to become outstanding leaders in the corporate world. Today, she continuously writes articles about women’s empowerment to inspire fellow women to chase their passions.

June 27, 2022

0

A woman smiling while looking at a laptop and writing.

How Women Can Spearhead the Tech Industry Through Coding Bootcamps

By Iva Kubickova | Featured

Tech careers are fast-growing careers that everyone wants to know how to get into. Coding bootcamps aim to upskill students’ tech knowledge to prepare them for careers in the tech industry. Women are disenfranchised in the male-dominated tech industry. There’s a glass wall that can feel impenetrable. There are also not a lot of inclusive opportunities for women to feel empowered to learn about the tech industry.

Coding bootcamps are a perfect opportunity for women who want to start building their careers at a low cost. You should also know that there are different options for everyone’s convenience, such as in-person, online classes, full-time, and part-time programs.

What is a Coding Bootcamp?

A coding bootcamp is an intensive training program where you gain practical knowledge by developing real-world projects. These programs teach a variety of technology-related topics, such as web development, data science, and cyber security.

Coding bootcamps offer training where you can develop the technical skills necessary to go out into the labor market and get your first job in the technology industry. The programs are taught by industry professionals who share their experiences and knowledge to help you achieve success in this new career choice.

Ways a Coding Bootcamp will help you launch your new Tech Career

Student outcomes tend to indicate that companies rely on bootcamp graduates to hire for entry-level jobs with high opportunities for advancement into new positions. Here are some of the ways coding bootcamps can help you launch your new tech career.

In addition, the salaries obtained in these jobs are in line with those reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in this area. Furthermore, according to PayScale, the average salary of a software engineer is around $88,653. This means that these types of careers are in-demand with high compensations.

Hands-on Practices

During the classes, you’ll be able to put into practice the knowledge you have learned. With various exercises of varying difficulty, you’ll get practice and consolidate your knowledge to then apply it to problem-solving in the projects you’re assigned.

The teachers explain by giving real-life examples of problem-solving and best practices. In this way, you’ll be able to perform your assignments correctly. In addition, you’ll be able to develop the projects and receive feedback, help, and advice at any time from your teachers and guides.

Project Portfolio

At the end of the program, you’ll have managed to develop a variety of real-life projects that’ll help you showcase your work and skills. This way you’ll demonstrate that you have experience, as you’ll be able to send your portfolio of projects to potential employers or clients.

Your first portfolio of work will be useful to get jobs as a freelancer. It’s a usual technique that professionals in the tech industry use to showcase their work and potential to develop challenging projects.

Fast-paced Programs

Bootcamp programs are designed to be completed in a short time, on average about six months if it’s a full-time program. Furthermore, most coding bootcamps offer part-time programs so that students who have a job can take these types of programs. Part-time programs can last up to one year.

These fast-paced programs offer a curriculum based on learning skills and practical knowledge that will prepare you to get a job quickly. Coding bootcamps like Flatiron School provides efficient courses to gear you up for entry-level tech jobs.

Ways a Coding Bootcamp will help you launch your new Tech Career

Bootcamps offer programs mostly in technology areas. Although initially, bootcamps used to offer programs only in computer sciences, nowadays, the topics have diversified to other areas. Below you’ll see some of the programs that are mostly offered:

Web design
Software engineering
Data science
Cyber security
UX/UI design
Digital marketing
Product management
Quality assurance engineering

Conclusion

Attending a coding bootcamp offers women the opportunity to meet with many professionals in the technology industry. Both the professors and your classmates will be your network of contacts who can open many doors for you upon graduation, and who could end up being your coworkers.

You’ll end up forming a network of contacts thanks to events such as conferences, lectures, and fairs. In addition, during the program, you’ll have the help of career services to advise and guide you on the path to success in your professional career, and to help you enhance your profile to start looking for your first job.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AJ Condez, from Manila, Philippines, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy from AMA Computer College. He has also taken courses from Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. Previously, he worked as a content manager for New Wave Media, handling WordPress websites, publishing SEO-friendly content, and supervising teams of writers and editors. He has also written content for SEO sites and his personal website. At Career Karma, AJ hopes to provide up-to-date information to deliver beneficial content to help readers start new careers. In his free time, AJ enjoys reading, journaling, and playing board games.