Attending vGHC 2020? Here’s what you need to know and do

A comprehensive checklist to the world’s largest gathering of women technologists!

The Grace Hopper Celebration 2020 is going virtual this year! Happening September 29 — October 3, GHC is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists! Grace Hopper Celebration commemorates, celebrates, fosters, and encourages the magnificent women in technology who dared to shed their inhibitions and recognized the genius in them.

What is Grace Hopper Celebration?

To honor and celebrate the contributions of Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906–1992), an American computer scientist, United States Navy rear admiral and the inventor of the first compiler, in 1994, Anita Borg and Telle Whitney founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing with the initial idea of creating a conference by and for women computer scientists,

Grace Hopper Celebration is now organized each year by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery in the United States around October and one in November — a relatively smaller version in Bangalore, India.

Each year, GHC hosts the women with a terrific central theme. In 2019, the theme being“ We Will Change the World” and in 2020 is “Together We Build”

vGHC 2020…The virtual edition

With the novel coronavirus posing a grave danger to a hosting 30,000+ attendees, GHC was announced to be held virtually this year. With the virtual GHC, as the rules of the game have changed, the experience, preparation, and excitement are different too.

As I prepare to attend the celebration, here’s what I am doing to stay updated!

1. Register for GHC!

The first step to your participation in GHC is to register for the celebration. The registration website is here.

With six offerings of access levels, what you want to register for depends on your expectations from GHC. Some common terms to get you started:

Orientation

A personal recommendation to attend for GHC first-timers and with the virtual nature, the orientation would be a perfect platform to get acquainted with navigation and do-s & don’ts of vGHC.

Career Fair Only

The Career Hall Expo Only includes just entrance to the Career Fair from Sept 29–Oct 2 and doesn’t include access to sessions, keynotes, AnitaB.org Membership, or any additional programming.

One Year Membership

The AnitaB membership program is driven to connect women with resources and fellow members to support at every phase of their career. The benefits include mentorship, learning curriculums, career pathways, connections, content libraries, and coaches.

Bonus Day

October 3 is referred to as the “bonus day” with only sessions to be hosted; no career hall expo operations. (I am seeing this as a day to soak in all from vGHC and the aftermath)

2. Join the GHC Facebook group

The Grace Hopper Celebration 2020 Facebook group is the wholesome guide you’ll get to GHC. With more than 14,000 members, you get to hear experiences of attendees, how to leverage the platform and get maximum from the celebration.

The Facebook group has posts with information on the career fair, sessions, slack channels for specific careers, interview prep, blogs, resume review, external GHC connects, resume database, what booth got the coolest swag (not sure how this time would look like) and anything under the sun for GHC.

The group is definitely overwhelming sometimes with the amount of information that is posted but make sure you keep an eye on there!

Join the group from here.

3. Upload your resume on the Resume Database

A very very integral part of GHC is the Career Fair! To get recruiter eyeballs to your profile even before you land up in vGHC, the Resume Database is your shot. You can submit your resumes and gain an inside track to the best tech organizations. At this point, I see 165 employer profiles listed on the career center.

Last year, GHC had more than 300 booths from companies A-Z you can think you. From the Resume Database, employers can review thousands of resumes and schedule an interview with you talented women technologists during GHC.

Resume Database is your first step to getting hired from vGHC!

You can upload your resume here.

4. Start preparing for the career fair

A very quintessential part of GHC is its career fair where hundreds of companies with 2000+ job openings are ready with arms open to get you ladies in their ecosystem. The best networking opportunity you can ever ask for!

With about 300+ companies with their booths, GHC is one overwhelming place to be in every time. With important decisions to make, it is quintessential that you know “what you want, and what can be let go”

Having attended GHC19, take it from me, it is disheartening when you connect with a recruiter, the conversation feels all right, they want to interview you but the slots for in-GHC interview are filled up and you never hear back from them again. It is shattering. Prioritize the companies you want to meet the recruiters of, for your best shot!!

While we have time for GHC, make sure to:

1. Find what company you want to interact with
2. Connect with the recruiters/employees
3. Prepare your elevator pitch!
4. Attend webinars, YouTube Live, info sessions on GHC
5. Sharpen your professional visibility & profiles (LinkedIn, Github)
6. Practice and practice for the career fair

That’s it from my end for this blog. Thank you for reading! I hope this helped! Do let me know what else are looking for to know for the vGHC 2020. Keep an eye out here for more things vGHC coming up soon…

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are my own and do not represent a strict outlook.

Know your author

Rashi is a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She loves to visualize data and create insightful stories. When not rushing to meet school deadlines, she adores writing about technology, UX, and more with a good cup of hot chocolate.