Increasing employer brand awareness among women in tech is essential for companies looking to advance from a Diversity & Inclusion standpoint.
During my time at Pandora, and now in my role as Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing Manager at Squarespace, Grace Hopper has always been a big part of our strategy – including experiential marketing on-site and digital/social marketing before, during, and after the event.
I’ll back up just a bit, in case you’re wondering what the Grace Hopper Celebration is.
The Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists. Named after computer pioneer Admiral Grace Hopper, the conference inspires women to develop their careers, break boundaries and transform the world of technology.
Partnering with the AnitaB.org, the organization that presents Grace Hopper, is essential— and I’d venture to say critical—for Diversity & Inclusion programs for two reasons:
- Employer Brand Awareness
- Retention, Learning, & Development
Side note: If you are a company focusing on Diversity & Inclusion, this is a great way to put your money where your mouth is. This conference would not be possible without support from partner organizations.
So, how does GHC help organizations recruit women in tech?
By sending employees to GHC, your company communicates an important message about how much you value supporting, developing and hiring gender diverse talent.
Further, by having a presence at the event, you get to connect with all the attendees joining the event from the around the world. Often these women are picked as delegates because they represent some of the brightest, most ambitious minds in tech.
After the conference, your recruiters can speak to your company’s GHC involvement during conversations with candidates, and you can publish social content on your careers channels to showcase your organization’s support of women in tech to a wider audience.
What kind of content can you create to support your GHC involvement?
There are endless directions you can take with content for GHC or other events. Here are a few ideas and approaches that we took for our GHC content at Squarespace this year:
Pre-event content
Grace Hopper is a marathon conference. While everyone develops their own strategies for getting the most out of the conference, it takes a couple of go-arounds to figure out what works for you.
This year, to get the attention of GHC attendees from outside our organization (and particularly to give first-time GHC-goers a head start), we tapped into folks at Squarespace who have gone before for their #protips. We pulled from interns, full-time employees, recruiters, and folks on our Diversity & Inclusion team.
These photos were shot by our in-house creative teams and we pushed one out each week leading up to this year’s event:
At the event
At the event itself, the above content pieces were put into a beautifully designed brochure that we gave out at our booth to achieve digital and in-person brand consistency.
We also shared real-time updates and continued posting tips from the conference to keep engaging with other attendees and showcase Squarespace’s participation.
Post-event content
After the conference, we plan to post recaps with high-res images that we captured at the event. Some of this content will be added to our Life page on LinkedIn, the Muse, FairyGodBoss, Career Contessa, and more. We will also be releasing some editorial content with our media partners.
How do we measure success for our GHC involvement?
We measure our success at Grace Hopper in a number of ways:
- Employee Experience
- Attendees/Check-Ins
- Applications, Offers, and Hires
- Social / Editorial impressions, engagements, ctr
However, your goals for participating in an awesome event like GHC may be different depending on what your organization’s Talent Acquisition and Recruitment Marketing objectives look like.
I hope these insights into my approach to GHC proves helpful as you consider your own strategies for attracting gender diverse talent and making your organization a better spot for women in tech and other diverse groups!