Forté Foundation Launches “Forté Career Gal Road Trip” Interactive Online Game

Forté Foundation Launches “Forté Career Gal Road Trip” Interactive Online Game

New Game Allows Young Women to Explore Different Majors, Career Paths, and to Hear Women Business Leaders’ Stories about their Road to Success

Austin, TX (March 23, 2010) – The Forté Foundation, a consortium of major corporations, business schools and non-profit organizations that directs talented women towards leadership roles in business, today announced the launch of the Forté Career Gal Road Trip. This innovative and interactive online game is designed for college women and recent college graduates who may be undecided in their career goals as well as those already considering a business major in college.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip, available at http://virtualcampus.fortefoundation.org/roadtrip, will allow users to test drive and explore different careers and experience the many, varied paths to success taken by others. Road Trippers will have the opportunity to make virtual work/life decisions including: leaving the workforce to pursue an MBA, starting a family, entering various fields of business based on different college majors, and much more. Each decision will ultimately lead to a video segment of a successful woman in business that has made a similar life choice at the same stage in her career. The outcomes will make it clear that a business major is a helpful but not required element for a successful career. Additional profiles and career paths will be added in the coming weeks.

“Our research of Forté members found that an overwhelming majority would have been interested in pursuing a career in business if they were aware of the options during college,” says Elissa Ellis Sangster, executive director of the Forté Foundation. “We created this site to help increase the odds that young women will be exposed to career opportunities in business, educated about the many paths to a successful career, and provided with access to role models to help them visualize their future.”

"When Forté approached us with their idea of creating a virtual "game of life" for young college women, we were very excited about the opportunity to help bring their vision to life,” says Elisha Moore, Director of Strategic Planning, Sibley/Peteet Design Austin. “Together we came up with the idea of a road trip as a fun metaphor for the many, varied paths to success available to women today -- a fun way to see where the road of life may lead."

The introduction of the Forté Career Gal Road Trip comes at a time when it’s especially important to ensure young women have early exposure to information and resources about career opportunities in business. New research of 37 Forté member schools has shown that women make up an average of just 31.7% of business school enrollment for the 2009-2010 class, a slight dip from last year, but an increase from when Forté first began tracking this in 2005.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip, which is available for free to all Forté members, will be useful for students, undergraduate career services counselors and advisors, high school guidance counselors and parents. It builds on the Forté Career Lab Virtual Campus microsite, launched in October 2008, which is a hub for insights into various companies and industries as well overall career choices. The site delivers customizable, interactive content including videos and podcasts featuring women currently working in industries such as consulting, marketing and human resources among many others. It also covers topics such as considerations for pursuing an MBA, choosing (or even switching) a career path and positioning yourself for success. In addition, the site includes a discussion forum for undergraduate women to ask questions and share viewpoints on career search topics, step-by-step guides on resume writing and interviewing, and links to helpful articles, blogs and a job database.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip and the Forté Career Lab Virtual Campus are online companions to Forté’s successful on-campus Career Lab events, which introduce college women to the full range of business careers, female role models and the benefits of an MBA. Students interested in attending a live Career Lab networking event should visit www.fortefoundation.org/careerlab for dates and locations across the U.S.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip is sponsored by Forté sponsor companies and business schools, with special underwriting support provided by Eli Lilly and Company, Ernst & Young LLP, and the Graduate Management Admission Council. The Forté Career Gal Road Trip was created in conjunction with Sibley/Peteet Design Austin, a design consultancy with expertise in brand strategy and identity development that helps organizations, big and small, envision, enable and engage their greatest brand potential.

About Forté Foundation

Forté Foundation is a consortium of leading multinational corporations, top business schools in the U.S. and abroad, and the Graduate Management Admission Council. Forté is the leading organization that provides a national infrastructure for women at all stages of the career continuum to access the information, scholarship support and networking connections they need to succeed in business careers. Additional information about the Forté Foundation is available online at www.fortefoundation.org.

What's Keeping Women MBAs from Earning Their Value?

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal posted an article summarizing the findings from a Catalyst study that female MBAs are still not earning as much as their male counterparts, despite having similar work and education backgrounds. There were 9,000 respondents that participated in this study, all of whom had graduated from business school between 1996 and 2007. On average, women earned $4,600 less in their first job out of business school than men. Plus, men are twice as likely to reach CEO or senior executive level in their current job than the women are.

Why is this happening? Are women still bound by a glass ceiling in the workplace? The WSJ interviewed Ann Bartel, an econ professor from Columbia Business School on the matter. She says that women are less likely to be considered for higher salaries and promotions because employers assume that women will eventually be taking leave to have children and start a family. But the blame doesn't fall entirely on employers. Many women don't strive as hard for the higher up positions for the same reason - the anticipation of starting a family.

Bartel goes on to say that in order for there to be real equality in the workplace, employers need to offer more flex-time or work from home options. That way, women who also want a family life will be able to move up the ladder and fully earn their value as an MBA - just as much as men.

I have hopes that we are moving in the right direction, though. The NYT recently reported that, for the first time in history, women outnumber men in the workplace. Over the last few decades, women have been steadily gaining a greater share of the nation's payroll, but the recent recession finally put women over the 50% mark. The article actually uses the term "man-cession" because men have been losing their jobs faster than women during this economic downturn. Even if men take the lead again after the recession is over, it's still gives me hope that women are quickly earning their fair share in the workplace. Women MBAs may not be lagging in pay and promotions for much longer.