Bell Integration and Women in STEM

In September 2022, we exhibited at our first Women in STEM technology virtual careers event. Susan Whitaker tells us about the experience. It was a first for Bell in several ways. Our first time at an event to promote Women in STEM, which as an employer in this sector we feel passionately about. Also, it was our first virtual event, which involved us exhibiting and engaging with the attendees on a digital platform. The event’s host was a company called STEM Women, who look at promoting jobs and careers to students and recent graduates who identify as women or non-binary in the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) sector. Due to the virtual nature of the event, open to students and graduates from across the UK, it provided us with a unique opportunity to promote our business and career opportunities to individuals from all sorts of backgrounds and locations. The virtual stand itself was easy to set up and we were pleased to be able to promote our first unique selling point of having a female CEO. It also gave us an opportunity to promote the variety of employees who volunteered their time, to support our exhibition and answer queries via webchat, voice and video calls. It’s only when you start to focus on an event like this, that you realise who seem to be your promoters and who have a natural passion to discuss the business and our services. There was a lot of relevant information to draw on as well as support. The event itself flew by as there was over 550 attendees and over 30 exhibitors for them to engage with. The team did a great job of answering a variety of queries and questions from what it is like to work at Bell, to more information on the roles we had available. Some numbers: We were delighted to see that the average number of attendees visiting stalls were 178 but we achieved over 350 throughout the event. Attendees were also able to book 121 conversations with our employees to discuss specific topics and were pleased to see over half of the timeslots made available were utilised. We had a variety of roles across the business advertised, including Graduate and Apprentice positions, with over 400 individual views and over 50 applications. Attending the event and reviewing the analytics has given us some great insight into what students and graduates are looking for, including which roles seemed to be more popular. We know that if we want to attract the right talent, it’s important for Bell Integration, as a brand and a business, to be out in the right circles. It is getting more and more competitive to acquire talent with the passion and drive for IT. A lot of lessons were learned from this event and we look forward to building on it as we look for future opportunities to exhibit.

For more information on Bell Integration and Women in STEM talk to Bell Procurement Management