Tag: San Diego: Life. Changing.

People: How we attract and retain talent

Talent drives corporate decision making and galvanizes innovation. In 2017, EDC developed programming – to complement San Diego: Life. Changing. – to attract and retain talent throughout the San Diego region.

Some of these were piloted for the first time and some were about taking an existing program to the next level. See more in our timeline below:

• 2013 – BRINGING CAREER OPPORTUNITIES TO STUDENTS
  It started with research. After conducting an economic impact study on the sports and active lifestyle industry, EDC wanted to put the data into action. Together with UC San Diego, EDC created itrends in sport and active lifestyle – a series that brought sports and brand leaders to campus to talk about career opportunities in the field. The panels were open to students in any major or school, illuminating numerous opportunities – from marketing to engineering to logistics – to work in the sports and active lifestyle industry in San Diego.
• 2014 – EXPANDING TO ADDITIONAL INDUSTRIES
  After the success of the itrends in sports and active lifestyle, EDC partnered with UC San Diego to host two additional industry-themed events around life sciences and cybersecurity. Based on preliminary feedback, students indicated they were more likely to explore career opportunities in San Diego after graduation after attending itrends.
• JANUARY 2015 – TRENDS BECOME LINK2 SAN DIEGO
  Other universities started to take notice. EDC renamed the program “Link2 San Diego” and expanded out its list of schools to include San Diego State University, Cal State San Marcos and University of San Diego.
• OCTOBER 2015 – LINK2 GOES TO SD HACKS
  EDC partnered with UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering to host a Link2 panel at SD Hacks, a hackathon attended by more than 1,000 students throughout the state. Hackathon attendees took a break from their 36 hours of coding to learn more about career opportunities in San Diego. After the success of the first SD Hacks in 2015, EDC hosted an additional Link2 at SD Hacks in October 2016.
• JANUARY 2016 – PROGRAM EXPANDS TO REACH MORE STUDENT POPULATIONS
  EDC wanted to ensure it was reaching younger students who had not yet determined their career pathways. Partnering with Junior Achievement, EDC worked to expand programming to include high school and community college students.
• APRIL 2016 – LINK2 HEADS TO DT SAN DIEGO
  in 2016, EDC partnered with the San Diego Downtown Partnership to take students off campus and into the workplace. Together, Link2 Downtown brought more than 30 UC San Diego students to downtown employers to learn about specific companies – including Red Door Interactive, Zeeto Media and others – first hand. Relive it with us.
• OCTOBER 3, 2017 – LINK2 HITS THE ROAD
  Three years later, it was time to test our luck outside the region. So we took Link2 to a California university and hub for STEM talent – Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. More than 40 students showed up to learn about career opportunities in San Diego from ViaSat, Intuit, Takeda, Solar Turbines and MindBody.

Stay tuned for more from Link2 – which we’re renaming “Link to” – in 2018.

This week, EDC took its Link2 San Diego program on the road, setting up shop at Cal Poly SLO’s Computing Career Fair where CS and engineering students came to connect with the biggest names in tech from around the country. The best news: we weren’t the only San Diego representation in the room. Among the sea of 35+ company booths were locals ViaSat, Booz Allen Hamiliton and Intuit.

EDC’s booth, themed San Diego: Life. Changing., served as the information hotspot for students looking to relocate after graduation. Of the 70 students we spoke with, most expressed interest in staying in California, and many were considering San Diego for post-grad. Confirming a common misconception, many students thought of San Diego as only a vacation beach-town and were unaware that the region is home to tech powerhouses Google, GoPro, Amazon, Intuit, FitBit and many more. We took this opportunity to garner student interest in the Link2 San Diego event taking place on SLO’s campus the week following (October 3), where students could network in a more casual, informational setting with local companies ViaSat, Intuit, Takeda, Solar Turbines and MindBody.

Our giveaways served to drive the San Diego reality home. The San Diego: Life. Changing. pocket guide and company map highlighted the industry opportunity available in San Diego, while our bottle openers (the fan favorite) alluded to our leading craft beer scene.

The purpose of the Link2 San Diego program is to highlight the career opportunity available in San Diego. We’ve done this locally, at SDSU, UC San Diego, USD and more. And now, with the Cal Poly Computing Career Fair, we’ve taken these efforts on the road – attracting students and soon-to-be grads into our region.

EDC officially launched San Diego: Life. Changing., a campaign to raise San Diego’s profile and attract and retain top STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) talent in the region. SDlifechanging.org includes information about living and working in the San Diego region, and will soon include a digital toolkit to assist companies in their recruitment efforts.

The campaign was launched at a specially-themed San Diego: Life. Changing Night at the Padres game on September 19, with more than 15,000 in attendance.

San Diego: Life. Changing. communicates San Diego’s evolving value proposition, driven by companies and people looking to change the world and upgrade their quality of life.

“We’re not Boston, New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles. And we don’t want to be,” said Mark Cafferty, president & CEO, San Diego Regional EDC. “This campaign was developed by San Diego…and for San Diego to communicate the unique opportunities and experiences our region offers to companies and employees alike.”

Extensive research proves that talent fuels economic growth, drives corporate decision-making and fuels entrepreneurship. If San Diego wants to remain economically competitive, it must continue to attract a talent pool that appeals to global companies.

The launch of the campaign is the culmination of Phase I of a year-long effort to refine a cohesive identity to attract and retain STEAM talent in the region. Hailing from life sciences and tech industries, nearly 100 companies with a San Diego presence have joined the “San Diego Brand Alliance” including Illumina, Human Longevity, Inc., SONY, ViaSat, Intuit – as well as many startups – and have provided feedback on potential recruiting tools and other San Diego assets.

“San Diego holds such tremendous opportunities for candidates, yet when recruiting top talent from outside of the region we still encounter the false perception that career options here are somewhat limited,” said Melinda Del Toro, senior vice president of People & Culture, ViaSat and vice-chair, San Diego Brand Alliance. “The San Diego: Life. Changing. campaign reinforces the message we’ve been telling candidates for years: San Diego is a dynamic, rich environment with incredible opportunities to have both the career and life you want, that you just don’t find in other regions.”

Over the next two years, San Diego: Life. Changing. will continue to build out SDlifechanging.org to include full company profiles, a video library and additional recruiting tools for companies. In 2018, EDC will look to partner with local organizations to deploy the campaign in specific markets across the country.

Learn more at SDlifechanging.org and follow along at #SDlifechanging. San Diego-based companies can request access to the recruiting toolkit online here.

Please see press kit and FAQs for additional information about the campaign.

We’re taking San Diego’s story into our own hands and launching San Diego: Life. Changing.: a campaign celebrating the smart and innovative companies and people that call San Diego home.

Before we go live at the Padres Game on September 19, we wanted to show the San Diego community what we’ve been up to. Cue: the Masters of Change event, August 10.

This was a night of good local food and drinks, a sneak peek of the campaign and remarks from San Diego’s number one pitchman himself, Bill Walton. We even mingled with San Diego’s very own celebrity chef, Brian Malarkey.

Special thanks to the folks at Alexandria Real Estate for throwing us the party of the century.

Look how much fun we had:

And it’s only the beginning…

Discover San Diego: Life. Changing. with this pocket guide full of interesting SD facts and a map illustration of the coolest companies in town!

This is the first official ‘tool’ – debuted last night – from EDC’s San Diego: Life. Changing. Campaign.

The world is changing – for better and for worse. In San Diego, we know we can change it for the better and enjoy life in the process.

It’s time we took our story into our hands. We’re not Silicon Valley. We’re not Los Angeles. And we’re not Denver, Austin or New York. We’re San Diego…and there’s never been a better time to own our story.

Introducing San Diego: Life. Changing.: a campaign about real people who have chosen San Diego and have changed the world and upgraded their lives along the way. This is #SDLifeChanging. See the details at SanDiegoLifeChanging.org.

San Diego: Life. Changing. from San Diego on Vimeo.

• Visit SanDiegoLifeChanging.org and sign up for campaign updates
• Share your story: How have you changed the world from San Diego? – using #SDLifeChanging
• Inspire yourself with #SDLifeChanging stories on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
• San Diego companies: join the brand alliance