Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Google in Double Shocker

August 27, 2008 at 12:25 am

Just back from the 2nd Dublin Girl Geeks Dinner. Pics are here. A more serious affair than last time, but enjoyable nonetheless. 30 odd or so turned up at the lovely Herb Street Restaurant in South Docks. Herb Street is next door to the Ely and they looked after us very well.

We decided to have a topic to talk about this evening and the topic was “Furthering Your Career”. Everyone around the room introduced themselves and what they do and why they were here, and the overriding message was “I’m one woman on a team of 30 men” or 20, or 14, or whatever. Why is this the case? I really don’t understand it when there are so many varying roles available to women in technology.

Some mentioned how they earn less than their male counterparts. One take on this is that women are not as good at promoting themselves as men and asking what they want. Kevin Lyda from Google (yes! a man!) mentioned a book he came across called “What Colour is Your Parachute” which is all about how to negotiate yourself some good money when going for a job.

I was interested to know from Sigmar Recruitment who sponsored the wine (cheers!) if they could put some Irish slant on the earnings figures from the A List Apart survey on the internet (see recent blog). That sparked a comment from one of the Google people there that Yahoo! do a good salary survey that is broken down by country. You can check that here.

Update: here’s an interesting post on the questions asked by Google and Microsoft in interviews. If you know anyone working for these companies, they are very intelligent indeed!

And in a second Google shocker of the evening, I met someone else from Google who – wait for it – actually gave me her business card which contained phone number, email address, the works! I’ve never ever met anyone from Google who has done such a thing! She must be either very high up in Google or…. faking it! But the card seems real enough and if anyone wants the details I’ll be happy to pass on!

I enjoyed this evening, met some good people who I haven’t met before, and am glad I attended. Next one I’d like to have a more fun theme. And on to fun… do you all know there’s a Tweet Up happening at the Electric Picnic on Saturday at 12 noon. More details on @peterd’s blog here.

Night now.

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