Recruitment Proven Practices

Use these proven strategies to recruit women to science and technology classes and careers.

Recruitment Collection

High School Automotive Teacher Has Continued Success Recruiting and Retaining Girls

  • In 2007, 10 of Phillip Jelinek's 125 Automotive Technology students in Monrovia, CA were female. In his 21 years of teaching this class, he has always had between 3 and 13 girls in his classes. It's clear that he uses recruitment and retention strategies that work.

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Environmental and Spatial Technology (EAST) Project -- An Industry/Education Collaboration That Works for Females and Minorities

  • In a survey of students at Maui High School, female students indicated that they would want to take science if it was made more relevant to their lives. Find out about an innovative program that provides a work-like environment to help keep them interested in technology.

Source:

Andrews, Christine L., and Leslie Wilkins. "Environmental and Spatial Technology (EAST) Project - An Industry/Education Collaboration That Works for Females and Minorities," Proceedings of the NAMEPA/WEPAN 2001 Joint Conference (April 21, 2001), NAMEPA/WEPAN. The Women in Technology Project is administered by the Maui Economic Development Board and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Labor.

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How to Develop and Market a Career Development Course to Recruit Women in Technology Related Classes

  • webinar_iconGeri Hertel, M. Ed., takes you through the step-by-step process of creating a Women in Technology class, including a sample curriculum.

    Please click here to access the webinar.

Louisiana Truck Driving Program Actively Recruiting Women

  • Out of the 138 graduates of the two-year old Trucking program at Louisiana Technical College's Lafourche Campus, 26 are women (18% versus the national average of 7%). This is due to the college's specific efforts to recruit women to their program.

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Pre-University Outreach: Encouraging Students to Consider Engineering Careers

  • Read about Ryerson University's Discover Engineering outreach program and summer camp. By the end of the program, the number of young women expressing an interest in engineering had doubled.

Source:

Anderson, Lisa, Kimberley Gilbride, "Pre-University Outreach: Encouraging Students to Consider Engineering Careers," Global Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 7, No. 1. c. 2003 UICEE.

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Recruiting and Retaining Women in Undergraduate Computing Majors

  • Find out 19 specific recommendations to recruit and retain more women to a computer science major, with action steps for implementation.

Source:

McGrath Cohoon, J., "Recruiting and Retaining Women in Undergraduate Computing Majors," SIGCSE Bulletin, Vol. 34, No.2, June 2002.

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Recruiting and Retaining More Women to Technology

  • podcast-lg4Donna Milgram, Executive Director of IWITTS, discusses strategies for educators to recruit and retain more women to technology with Gordon F. Snyder, Jr. and Mike Qaissaunee.

    Please click here to listen to the podcast.

Recruiting Lower-Income Women Into Information Technology Careers: Building a Foundation for Action

  • Researchers interviewed IT employers, professionals and educators about recruiting women to technology and developed steps for educators interested in building their own IT Outreach Campaign.

Source:

Bush, Sharon; Henle, Toni; Cohen, Shoshana; Jenkins, Davis; Kossy, Judith, "Recruiting Lower-Income Women Into Information Technology Careers: Building a Foundation for Action," Women Employed Institute, 2002.

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Recruiting Women to the Trades: Marketing Strategies that Work

  • Sending a strong message that women are wanted is one way to recruit applicants. Learn about the techniques that led to a 59% jump in the number of female apprentices in Hawaii.

Source:

Andrews, Christine L., and Leslie Wilkins. "Recruiting Women to the Trades: Marketing Strategies that Work!!!" Maui Economic Development Board, Women in Technology Project. The Women in Technology Project is administered by the Maui Economic Development Board and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Labor.

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Tapping the Rich Diversity of the Community Colleges: Akamai Summer Internship Program -- An REU Model at Maui Community College

  • Eleven students, including 4 women, participated in an Adaptive Optics Science internship. A year later, 80% of the students were continuing their science education and at least eight had received job offers.

Source:

Andrews, Christine, Leslie Wilkins, Malika Moutawakkil, Lisa Hunter, "Tapping the Rich Diversity of the Community Colleges: Akamai Summer Internship Program - An REU Model at Maui Community College," Proceedings of the 2005 WEPAN/NAMEPA Joint Conference. 2005 WEPAN NAMEPA. The Women in Technology Project is administered by the Maui Economic Development Board and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Labor.

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Evergreen Valley College Increases Retention of both Female and Male Automotive Students by over 25%

  • Evergreen Valley College (EVC), one of eight CalWomenTech Project Sites, went from a 57.6% to 100% female completion rate in 6 months time with an aggregate rate of 88.3% over two years in the Project. Male retention rate also increased from 60.8% to 86.4% (a 25.6% increase).

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Las Positas College Increases Female Students in Welding and Automotive Technology from 5% to 14%; Retention Increases to 94%

  • Las Positas College, one of eight CalWomenTech Project Sites, increased their enrollment of female students in the trades through implementation of their recruitment strategic plan over two years and a variety of creative strategies ranging from free press coverage of their program on a local TV station (and showcasing the clip on their website) to a pink Women in Technology RULE emery board/ruler give-away.

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Women Increase from 18 to 30% of City College of San Francisco’s Computer Networking and Information Technology Program

  • In addition to implementing core recruitment strategies provided by the CalWomenTech project, City College of San Francisco's Computer Networking and Information Technology Program, one of eight project sites, incorporated custom recruitment strategies into their annual strategic plans, with a special focus on the college's counseling staff. What's more, adjustments to teaching styles -- based on IWITTS' retention training -- positively impacted completion rates of not only female students, but males as well.

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Women Now Nearly Half of San Diego Mesa Community College’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Program

  • San Diego Mesa Community College, one of eight CalWomenTech Project Sites, used the CalWomenTech Project's core recruitment strategies along with a special focus on women students during their annual GIS day to significantly increase the number of women in their GIS program. Plus, GIS instructors modified their teaching style based on the WomenTech Training they received on retention, resulting in 100% retention of female and male students for several semesters.

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