In the Age of Constant E-mail Subscriptions, Here is One you Actually Won't Regret!

As many of you who are close to me know, I am part of a research study on women in political tech in campaigns now officially titled, "Recoding the Boys' Club - Women vs. The Digital Tech Ceiling #ProjectRecode," with an Allstar team of fellow undergrads/grad students and supervised by Dr. Daniel Kreiss.

In a snapshot, we are looking at the experiences of women working in the fields of technology, digital media, data, and analytics on political campaigns. An incredible dataset, 50+ honest and candid in-depth interviews by women in the field, lit reviews and help from so many others have allowed it to become so much more. We are launching a website and white paper at an event at GOOGLE in Washington, DC!

One of those many more that my group was able to come into contact with was TheBridge and one of its #badassfemale (should I abbreviate to BAF?) founders, Allie Brandenburger. The connection to our study will become more clear as you read on...

The first thing you see when you go on website is, "TheBridge: A network of tech & political professionals connecting the Bay Area & DC and shaping the future course for how politics and tech collaborate."

It gets better as you scroll down - there are tabs for a jobs board, events, profiles and the latest emails as well as the option to subscribe (I recommend it).

The job board updates with new jobs in the San Fran and DC area constantly with jobs of all levels: "Utilize TheBridge’s JobsBoard to discover top talent in politics, technology and media. Our subscribers hold positions in the highest levels of government and technology companies. Jobs posts will be visible on TheBridge’s jobs board, which is featured in our biweekly newsletter and on our website." Interested in what they mean by subscribers? Take a look at the profiles section. It's AMAZING! They also have an email campaign that you can subscribe to that basically sums up their features, as well as other features like "The Daily Download" (sharing current news about what is going on in San Fran/DC/Tech world) and a people in the Bridge Spotlight. Here is an example of the most recent one.

Shameless plug - my research partner Sumner and I sat there for an hour in shock of how we didn't realize this existed earlier in our *painful and anxiety ridden* job search process.

So how does this relate to us and moreover, why should any of you reading this even care to begin with? Well in terms of the study I am a part of the target was a natural fit and as I stated earlier part of what we are focusing on is hiring in campaigns and how that can relate to gender (oversimplified explanation). As I said earlier, and as many of you know, the job search is an extremely hard process and, "networking," is not the glamorous, 'go get a drink with your young professional crush that will magically offer you a job 2 drinks in.' Combine that with campaigns, where hiring often moves extremely fast and is done off word of mouth. We have seen that often times, women can be less confident than men - they are less willing to go up to the executive and spit out why they are perfect for the job. You see what I am getting at in this oversimplified explanation? Organizations like TheBridge exist as MUCH NEEDED resources to help this process along, especially when it seems to be one that may be disadvantaging women. But let's face it - the process is hard for anyone and I can guarantee we all need all the help we can get.

It also serves as a resource for the people DOING THE HIRING to potentially be able to select from a larger and more diverse applicant pool. TheBridge is establishing a space where these opportunities are listed and the networking contacts are there - these are opportunities that many may never have known about and never have "networked" their way into the running or applied to. Therefore, if they never did, the ones doing the hiring would have far less applicants to chose from. It is a mutually beneficial circle for lack of a better metaphor.

I strongly recommend signing up - you won't regret it and I don't think this will be the last time I am writing about them anytime soon. Thank you to the founders Allie and Jamie - we need more people like you creating more organizations like this! With the help of TheBridge, you can find the "I Feel Pretty" (A la Amy Schumer) persona that I wrote about earlier and handle this process with ease.

Written with the help of my partner in the study (and in life) Sumner Park - check out her blog: http://sumnerpark.org.