[projektir]

> Places are desperate to hire you so do not be afraid to apply at places where you feel you may be a little under qualified.

My automatic reaction to this was "lol what"...

I don't really think most companies are desperate to hire women. I can see companies paying more attention to women (for better or for worse), but desperate is absolutely not the word I'd use. You're still going through the same interview process as everyone else, and having interacted with various people who were applying to the same companies as myself, everything looked exactly the same and acceptance/rejection rates were very similar. It's not like being a woman waves a magic wand to get rid of the many troublesome parts of an interview process that affect men and women all the same.

I don't know if I'd want to work for a company that was desperate to hire a specific subgroup of people, anyway...

I'd take a referral over being female any day.