Student Hackathons are Magic
Why Investing in the Student Hackathon Movement is Investing in the Future of Your Org
If you work with technology you’re probably familiar with the concept of a hackathon — a day or more long engineering contest where teams compete to create software and hardware products. While hackathons regularly take place all over the world — covering different engineering topics and catering to different engineering audiences — one institution is responsible for the largest percentage of student hackathon events: Major League Hacking (MLH).
I recently sat down with Jonathan Gottfried from Major League Hacking and Jason Valentino from Capital One’s Technology Development Program to learn a little more about the power of the student hackathon movement.
Today’s Students Are the Devs of Tomorrow
“People are choosing to be there. No one has assigned them to be there, no one is grading them. It’s really a place where you have a self-selected group of people who really love what they’re doing and want to learn developer craft — which is super important when you’re going into the industry.” — Jonathan Gottfried, Major League Hacking
Computer science courses generally focus more on academic programming theory than practical implementations. Hackathons take the reverse stance and are often more aligned with cutting edge tech trends. Students are building the kinds of projects with the kinds of tools they’ll be encountering in their first tech jobs, gaining important experience along the way. These benefits aren’t limited to CS majors either.
With a reputation as a good environment to learn to code, hackathons attract a lot of non-CS students trying to increase their tech skills. Per Jonathan Gottfried, while 30% of CS students in the US attend a Major League Hacking Event, only about 60% of the total attendees are CS students. The other 40% are generally self-taught developers or are majoring in related fields like math, engineering, business, digital design, etc. By extending invites beyond the CS department, hackathons can reach groups traditionally underrepresented in the major. Students that hold a deep passion for technology — and might want to work in the tech field — despite pursuing other majors.
“We’re inviting people to the dance.” — Jonathan Gottfried, Major League Hacking
By creating a space where students, regardless of major, can develop real-world coding skills, hackathons help empower and mentor a new generation of technology professionals. They also help them develop soft skills like leadership, communication, and teamwork experience that are needed for professional success.
“Student Hackathons are one of the greatest examples of project based learning. Hackathon teams take the strengths from each of the folks sitting around that table and work together to create amazing products. Rarely has anyone on the team worked on a similar project, rarely has the team worked with source control, it’s just a bunch of really smart young people, teaching and learning from one another to figure things out.” — Jason Valentino, Capital One
Today’s Students are Your Devs of Tomorrow
“You show up at a career fair you get a pile of resumes you have to sort through from students you didn’t really get to talk to for more than a minute or two. When you go to a hackathon it’s a very different environment and you really get to know people.” — Jonathan Gottfried, Major League Hacking
What is the traditional university recruitment strategy? Recruiters might have target schools they visit a few times a year, they might go to career fairs or talk to the computer science department or advertise on job boards. As Jonathan said, these are all fairly “light-touch approaches” compared to the in-depth engagement happening at hackathons.
Student hackathons provide recruitment benefits that outweigh those of either career fairs or non-student hackathons.
- They’re intercollegiate. Depending on how they are structured, student hackathons generally aren’t restricted to students from a single school. This means you can come and interact with students from an entire region at once.
- They attract the best of the best. A student hackathon can take up an entire weekend and involve a several-hour commute. Attendees are students who really care about what they’re doing and want to put in the extra effort to learn more about developer craft. Want to meet goal-oriented overachievers? You can find them here.
- You really get to know the students. A weekend is a long time to spend with a group of students. Instead of looking at a resume, you’re watching how they problem solve, ideate, and write code in real time. You’re even getting a chance to mentor and help them in the process. This provides a high level of engagement with passionate, excited, self-driven students and is important from a recruiting perspective.
- Everyone is in the job market. Most people attending a hackathon as an experienced professional already have a job. Sure, they might be looking for a new gig, but this is generally a small subset of attendees. For student hackathons, literally every one of them is looking for a job or internship in the near future.
- Not everyone is a CS major. As stated earlier, about 40% of attendees are self-taught and either pursuing related majors or are simply passionate about tech. These are business majors driving the product design, design students creating the UI/UX or graphics, electrical engineering students designing the hardware, etc. To read more about the value of recruiting outside of CS majors go here.
Diversity tends to be higher than in CS majors. “We try to do a lot of outreach to groups that aren’t traditionally represented in CS. A lot of young people self-select out of the CS major before they even get to college. They’ve been sent so many messages that tell them they’re not welcome in this industry so they decide not to pursue the major, even if they’re really interested in technology. We get a lot of these people coming into our hackathons because they’re so community-oriented and their friends have invited them. So, our events aren’t plagued by the diversity problems CS departments have, because we’re not just catering to those students.” — Jonathan Gottfried, Major League Hacking
Developer Marketing Starts Today
“Every student walks away with a Major League Hacking shirt and a huge percentage wear them weekly or monthly. That is their social identity, it’s not, ‘Oh, I’m a football player!” it’s “Oh, I’m a hacker!” These shirts give them a way to show off what they care about socially and professionally.” — Jonathan Gottfried, Major League Hacking
Hackathons allow sponsors to get a jump on Dev Marketing and Brand Marketing with an influential and passionate subset of students. And as said earlier, today’s students are tomorrow’s devs. Potentially even your company’s devs. How does this break down?
- Dev Marketing — How do you raise awareness of your APIs and dev tools? How do you teach students about the technologies they should familiarize themselves with for their first junior dev position? The one-on-one mentoring at hackathons can be a powerful educational opportunity. In school, classes often focus on academic theory over practical implementation. Additionally, many classrooms aren’t using cutting-edge products or industry practices. These events can give them valuable, real life experience with industry tools. Including yours.
- Brand Marketing — Millennials are a vocal, influential, interconnected group. They’re active on social media, they blog, they grew up with computers and smart phones and have a good understanding of the role technology plays in the world. Having them feel positively about your brand, about the ambassadors they met and interacted with, has long term value.
“Before these hackathons, most students think of Capital One as just a bank they see in commercials from time to time. It’s up to us to educate them that there are lots of cool technical opportunities there and really smart people working on really interesting problems. That takes time and it takes engagement and it takes awareness building, and that is what Major League Hacking does.” — Jonathan Gottfried, Major League Hacking
Undoubtedly, there are more professional hackathons than student hackathons happening in a given year. However, per Jonathan Gottfried, a group like Major League Hacking works with 65,000 students a year in events that are larger, more consistent, and at a greater geographical penetration than that of professional hackathons. This gives student events a scaling advantage, allowing for engagement with more people at the most influential stage in their education and careers.
“For me, more important than sponsoring these event, image impressions, or having our banner up, is staffing our hackathons with ambassadors that represent the engineering culture and capabilities of Capital One.” — Jason Valentino, Capital One
Capital One’s Commitment
“I have a theory we’ve proved through this hackathon partnership that the folks who end up being the best engineers aren’t necessarily the 4.0 CS students. It’s the folks who come in and really hit the keyboard and really understand technology and learn fast. The folks that have such an interest in it that they give up weekends for hackathons and join clubs and build apps in their spare time. If I can identify that populace through some means — and that means for Capital One has been hackathons — we can get a better understanding of their potential than if I just looked at grades and test scores.” — Jason Valentino, Capital One.
Aside from being Major League Hacking’s apparel sponsor, Capital One is an active sponsor of individual student hackathons. In 2017, Capital One directly sponsored forty student hackathons across a diverse combination of schools, regions, and events as part of our Technology Development Program (TDP).
Started in 2009, TDP seeks to recruit, train, and hire approximately 400 college students per year, many of whom we met at student hackathons. These TDP alumni often make our best hackathon ambassadors, coming back years later to mentor the next round of hackathon participants.
From a broader community perspective, Capital One is also invested in reaching students well before they make it to their first student hackathon. Our Future Edge initiative is providing $150 million in grants and support to help people gain digital skills for the 21st century. One aspect of this initiative is the Capital One Coders — a 10-week program where our associate volunteers teach thousands of school kids about problem solving, teamwork, and the basic principles of software development and coding. And yes, it too ends in a mini-student hackathon event.
“Finding the future technology leaders of our org is no small task. Nine times out of ten, I’ll take someone that spends their spare time playing with technology over someone who just does their homework.” — Jason Valentino, Capital One
To learn more about student hackathons, make sure to check out Jonathan, Jason, and Sharon Lin’s panel discussion at SXSW. It will take place at the Capital One House on March 12th at 2pm.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT: These opinions are those of the author. Unless noted otherwise in this post, Capital One is not affiliated with, nor is it endorsed by, any of the companies mentioned. All trademarks and other intellectual property used or displayed are the ownership of their respective owners. This article is © 2018
