Making the Most of Your Grace Hopper Conference Experience
Imagine fitting 25,000 people into a single building. As someone with tragically bad space perception skills, I would definitely struggle imagining a space that large. Except I spent a whole week in such a space — at the 2019 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC).
As a senior in college, this was my first GHC and if it weren’t for talking to my friends who have gone and reading the many articles out there on how to experience it at the fullest, it definitely would have turned out quite differently. Here are some of my thoughts and tips on how to best utilize your GHC experience, and even land offers as a result.
Before GHC — Housing, Resumes, and Logistics Galore!
Do your research — While GHC does partner with hotels that will have shuttles to the conference, my friends and I were able to find a decent hotel that was cheaper than any of the hotels on their list. We paid around $106 each for four nights vs. the cheapest GHC partner hotel that was around $119 per person. In addition, since our hotel was located right next to a GHC partner hotel, we were still able to hop on their shuttle 😄
Submit your resume — As soon as the GHC resume database opens, submit a copy of your resume. Since you can keep updating it as many times as needed, this can only help you. By late July, I knew of companies reaching out to people via email. These emails are great to help kick start your recruiting process and schedule interviews before the conference starts. Companies can’t reach out to you if they don’t have your information.
Things to Bring
Besides the typical items you need to bring when traveling, here are some key items that I found useful:
1. Resumes — Definitely print these out ahead of time and bring at least 20 copies if you plan on spending a lot of time at the career fair. The onsite FedEx had a long line and crazy prices 😰 You may have heard it’s wise to bring 30–40 copies. I found this unnecessary since many companies solely scanned badges to access candidates’ resumes in the GHC database. It wasn’t necessary to have too many hardcopies on hand.
2. Water bottle — Dry mouth is a common symptom from all the talking and walking. Stay hydrated!
3. Mints — Since you will be speaking with so many other people, this is nice to have on hand 😉
4. Comfortable shoes — I’ve never had a comfy pair of cute flats until discovering Rothy’s. On interview days, I wore those since they were professional and comfortable. Other days were nice sneaker days! While this may seem too casual, I saw many other attendees there in casual nice dress. Given the amount of walking and standing you’ll do, heels are not a good idea here.
5. Weather-appropriate professional clothes — Orlando was hot and humid. Blazers were fine for indoor talks and the career fair, but if you’d be crazy to wear them to an outdoor event. For these situations, make sure to have the proper attire.
6. Extra suitcase space — You’re going to bring a lot of swag home. Trust me. From water bottles to pins to the classic tech shirt, save some extra room for these!
As a student, I didn’t find business cards particularly helpful. Unless you have some unique design, I wouldn’t stress over designing and printing these.
The Famous GHC Career Fair
Ah yes, the famous career fair — the intense and bustling highlight for many students’ time at GHC (ya girl’s gotta work!). While there will always be a crowd here at any given moment, I usually didn’t have to wait long to speak to a recruiter at company booths. On the first day, there was a 1.5 hour long “Career Fair Crawl”. I’d recommend getting to the conference center at least an hour early to register and pick up your badge before lining up. Registration was quite chaotic and I heard many people recounting their horrifying multi-hour waits 😱 Don’t let that be you!
What helped me was doing research and reading on the companies I wanted to visit. Doing this helped me ask better questions than “What does your company do?” Knowing which companies I wanted to talk to also meant I had a game plan of how to navigate the huge space within a limited time. As a result of my conversations, I was able to expedite the hiring process for a company that I will now be joining post-graduation!
The swag here was next level. Reusable straws, folding cups, silly putty, and pages of stickers — anything you can imagine, there was probably a branded version there. One company had a hand lettering specialist there to decorate custom notebooks. Another was even handing out tickets to Harry Potter World!
Networking: The Non-Snakey 🙅🐍 Version
When people say GHC is one of the biggest networking events of the year, they aren’t kidding! From lunch at the food court to breaks between sessions, every interaction becomes a potential networking opportunity (in the most genuine way). I had no idea I would end up having conversations over lunch with complete strangers about people’s journeys in tech and how one person liked living in New York.
When I sat down on a couch in between sessions, the woman next to me peered at my name tag and started a conversation just by saying, “Oh you’re from the Bay!” We ended up talking a lot about the tech industry’s impact on the Bay Area, her experiences of working at a large company, and even her daughters’ careers in technology. When it comes to networking during the conference, I strongly suggest approaching it with an open mind and being genuine as possible 😊
After conference hours, there are a ton of company sponsored dinners and socials. From Twitter, Google, and Intuit to Asana, Arm, and Audible — almost every company there had some event after hours. Most of these are open to anyone, as long as you RSVP on their event page. However, there are invite-only ones, which you can attend either as a plus-one or through an invite from the career fair or pre-conference emails. These were fantastic chances to speak with people who work at these companies, or just have fun and meet with other conference attendees! Also don’t feel committed to staying at one event. I knew of many people who hopped from one event to the next.
Interviews
Another great feature of GHC is the opportunity to do interviews at the conference. Some of my friends even scored offers by the end of GHC. In fact, I spoke with one company representative who said they were aiming to get out 100 offers by the end of the week 😮 That said, getting interviews still requires a bit of legwork prior to and at the conference.
In my case, I was in the hiring process with some companies and due to upcoming offer deadlines, I asked to interviews at GHC. Luckily, they agreed!
Interviews take place in a huge conference hall, much like the career fair. After checking in, I walked through rows on rows of curtained off booths. It was surprisingly much quieter than I had anticipated. I used my laptop for the interview itself, which was nice because I was used to coding interviews with it. Thus, my experience was largely similar to the standard technical phone screen, just live.
Sessions
I centered my schedule around sessions that were more motivational and career-growth oriented. Unfortunately, I didn’t find most of them to be particularly helpful. Due to the 30-minute time constraints on most sessions, it was difficult for speakers to truly delve into topics. If you get to the portal early for session sign ups, I would definitely try snagging the mentorship sessions as well as the networking lunches (free food!). By planning ahead for the sessions I was interested in, it made the sign up process a lot easier. In the end, my favorite session was one on how Google created the auto complete feature in Gmail. If I could do it again, I would center my session choices around ones that taught new technologies.
Final Notes
While I wouldn’t pay to attend in the future, GHC was definitely a memorable week. I’ve never stood in a space that large, looked around, and saw seas of other women who were also pursuing and/or already thriving with careers in technology. Meeting so many accomplished individuals, seeing all these companies who are committed to the effort, and best of all, listening to the stories of those who have been in industry for decades — there’s no words to describe this warm and fuzzy, but also empowering and inspiring, feeling that I will hold onto for a long, long time 💙
