To mark International Women’s Day on March 8th, PricewaterhouseCoopers are running a snap survey to assess first impressions of the impact of the global economic crisis on women’s careers and prospects, now and in the future.

Will the recession break the glass ceiling or reinforce it? Will it set equality back ten years, or put women on an equal footing for caring and pay responsibilities? Have women been more adversely affected by job cuts than men?

Or is the recession’s potential impact on women all just hype?

Click here to take the survey.

Please share your thoughts – and pass on the survey to your friends and colleagues. It will take no more than ten minutes to complete, and a report on the results will be found in the coming weeks at the PwC Gender Agenda blog.

The survey website will remain open until March 10th.

by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

The Network Journal, a business magazine which provides news and commentaries on the workplace and focuses predominantly on Africa-American professionals, recently announced its 2009 list of “25 Influential Black Women in Business.”

The twenty-five women will be honored during Women’s History Month at the Eleventh Annual 25 Influential Black Women in Business Awards luncheon March 12. The event will be held at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel.

Events like this one help to foster much-needed strategic networks for African-American business women. As we recently reported, the lack of these networks is often cited as one of the reasons there is still far too little diversity in executive suites and on corporate boards. As we reported last week, a recent poll conducted by The Executive Leadership Council showed that 31 percent of the 150 executives surveyed attribute advancement challenges for African-American women to weaker or less strategic networks available.

This year’s list of influential women includes two corporate attorneys: Sandra Scott, Vice President, Legal Affairs, Home Box Office, Inc., and Teresa Wynn Roseborough, Senior Chief Counsel – Litigation, MetLife. It also includes Vernã Myers, Esq., Principal, Vernã Myers Consulting Group, LLC. Ms. Myers’ Boston-based consulting company helps law firms and related organizations face the challenges of diversity and inclusion. Prior to starting her own business, Myers practiced corporate and real estate law for six years at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault LLP and at Fitch, Wiley, Richlin & Tourse LLP.

Also among the recipients is Ci Ci Holloway, Managing Director, Diversity & Inclusion, for UBS Investment Bank. UBS offers programs in mentoring, work-life balance and managing a career comeback.

There are several women from the technology sector among this year’s honorees including Gayle Lanier, Vice President & General Manager, Knowledge Services, Nortel Networks; Elizabeth Williams, President & CEO, Roxbury Technology Corp.; and Kelly Chapman, Director, Diversity Recruiting, Microsoft Corp. Microsoft has an extensive program to reach out to potential employees from diverse backgrounds. The software giant partners with organizations like Catalyst, The Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit, the Society of Women Engineers and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs in its recruiting efforts.

“The women we are honoring on the eleventh year of these awards are, as usual, in the forefront of American leadership and symbolize the diversity and advancement that has occurred across industry lines,” The Network Journal Publisher and CEO Aziz Gueye Adetimirin said. “We salute them for achieving significant levels of success in their businesses and professional careers and for their myriad contributions to their community.”

Last Friday, Forbes.com reported that 117,639 have been or are scheduled to be lost from 500 of the largest companies in the United States, including General Motors, which plans to cut 47,000 jobs; Caterpillar, which cut 22,000 jobs and PNC Financial Services Group, which plans to cut 5,800 jobs. Of course, the banking and financial services sector has been shedding jobs at an alarming rate since 2007. The banking crisis, which includes the failures of the investment banking giants and the concomitant mergers of large financial institutions, has contributed to a flooding of the tight job market with talent.

According to Steve Candland, Managing Partner of Advantage Integrated Talent Services, “generalist junior investment bankers” – people who are only a couple of years into career at professional level – are having the most difficult time in the current job market. “Also, on the capital market side, credit default swaps, which was a fast growing area just a year ago, has seen a steep drop as well.”

But is it all doom and gloom out there?

Read more

Feeling confident in the way you approach your job search is essential to a successful job transition. In this difficulty economy, it may be time to redirect your current strategies and put winning techniques to work. This workshop will address the do’s and don’ts of writing a resume, key networking tools, starting a new career, pursuing entrepreneurship and much more.

seating is limited and advance registration is required. Register here

Speakers

• School Visiting Professorial Fellow, Professor Virginia Valian
• Chaired by the Dean, Professor Sir Roderick Floud

DescriptionWomen are conspicuous by their relative absence at the most prominent levels of science, medicine, business, law, and academia. Women are sparsely represented on the editorial boards of leading journals and on the steering committees of professional organizations. Women are thinly represented among full professors at major universities. Why?

Valian’s explanation of women’s slow advancement in the professions details how and why women are disadvantaged and men advantaged – even though all the participants sincerely hold egalitarian and meritocratic attitudes. Valian reviews experimental data that demonstrate that gender schemas produce subtle overvaluations of men and undervaluations of women, by both men and women. As a result of many small examples of differential valuation, men are able to accumulate advantage more quickly than women.

Valian includes remedies, what institutions and individuals can do to achieve genuinely fair organizations that make full use of everyone’s talents.

The Lecture will be followed by a drink reception.

To view the poster, please click here.