Marketplace Morning reports new Skin in the Game series explores what we can learn about

money and careers from the $300 billion video game industry. Plus, here how an Oakland-based

program helps young people get the skills they need to break into this booming industry.

Listen to Skin in the Game and more from the Marketplace Morning report wherever you get your

podcasts. It might be getting even harder to nab an internship and tech. From American public media,

this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty-Korino.

While it's never been easy to get a coveted internship at a big name Silicon Valley firm,

this summer there's been an added wrinkle. The tech industry is still reeling from mass layoffs.

Many HR departments and recruiting budgets have been slashed, which might put up even more

barriers for candidates from underrepresented groups. That's according to Ruth Farmer,

the founder and CEO of The Last Mile Education Fund, which helps low-income students get through

college and get on track for a career in tech. Something she says is challenging even in the best

of times. Most companies recruiting processes have been designed for affluent students.

You fly over to Seattle and you stand a fancy hotel and you have all these interviews.

I have had students literally tell me that they went to go to an interview and they could not check

into their hotel because the hotel wanted to put a $400 hold on their debit card. Then they

have to call their recruiter and say, I can't check in with just this totally humiliating experience

right before you're going into an interview. If we realize that more than half of our talent pipeline

is coming from low-income backgrounds, that is a system that excludes them.

How is the slowdown in in tech affecting internship recruitment? I think one thing that I have

heard is that recruiting budgets have been cut and what that is going to mean is that the

recruiting teams of companies aren't going to have as much capacity to go beyond a handful of schools.

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