Although millennial women are seen as better job candidates and better prepared for their first jobs out of college, men are still viewed as better prepared for success in their careers overall, according to survey data released today by Bentley University that asked respondents for their views about recent college graduates. The survey underscores the need to address out of date perceptions that remain despite positive views on women in the workplace, and other perception-based barriers that prevent millennial women from advancing within their organizations.
The results are part of the Bentley Preparedness Survey, conducted on the university’s behalf by KRC Research, which surveyed more than 3,000 respondents on the “why, what and how” behind the millennial generation’s challenges in the 21st-century workforce. A key area covered in the survey is the perception of career preparedness and advancement of women in the workplace compared to men.
“There’s no question that millennial women have what it takes to make it to the top of their organizations,” said Betsy Myers, the founding director of the Center for Women and Business at Bentley. “But as these results show, we still have work to do to clear away the obstacles that deprive women of equal opportunities to advance their careers.”
By a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent, respondents consider women to be better prepared than men for success in their first jobs. But respondents give the edge to men over their entire careers, 53 percent to 47 percent, reinforcing the idea that perceptions, not necessarily skills, still play a key role in whether women and men have equal opportunities in their professional lives. Other key survey findings include:
• More than 8 in 10 respondents (82 percent) — including 76 percent of men — believe women are better suited for business success in terms of their communication and interpersonal skills. And 86 percent of respondents (including 76 percent of men) rate women higher in terms of their organizational skills.
• However, 64 percent of respondents, including a majority of women, say men are better suited to business success in terms of their leadership abilities, which may help explain why respondents view men as better prepared for success over their entire careers.
• The one area where respondents split along gender lines is decision-making skills: 62 percent of women say that women are better suited for success in terms of their decision-making skills, while 63 percent of men believe the same to be true of men.
• Encouragingly, millennial women have great confidence in women’s skills and abilities. A full 92 percent of millennial women believe that women’s organizational skills are superior to men’s. And 84 percent believe that women’s communications and interpersonal skills are superior to men’s — skills that the Bentley Preparedness Survey showed to be highly valued by business leaders.
The survey examined potential solutions for preparing millennial college graduates, both men and women, for success not just in their first jobs after college, but throughout their careers. It found that all stakeholders — parents, business leaders, colleges and universities, high school and college students, and recent college graduates — can play a stronger role in encouraging millennial women to pursue business careers and help remove obstacles that prevent them from rising through the ranks.
Bentley’s Center for Women and Business works to identify solutions to help women reach positions of leadership. Most recently, the CWB joined forces with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to develop a fellowship program that places graduate-level women in paid positions in state government while also providing leadership training and networking opportunities.
To learn more about the Bentley Preparedness Survey’s findings on women in business, visit The PreparedU Project. To learn more about the main findings from the survey, released in January 2014, visit The PreparedU Project launch.
About The Bentley Preparedness Survey
KRC Research conducted 3,149 interviews among nine unique audiences. Fieldwork was conducted between October 17, 2013 and October 25, 2013. The survey was conducted online and took an average of 29 minutes to complete. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 1.75 percent at the 95 percent confidence level; it is larger for the nine audience subgroups (business decision makers, corporate recruiters, higher education influentials, parents of students, junior and senior high school students, four-year college students, recent college graduates, and the general population).