Elevator Pitch Contest Helps Prepare STEM Students with Disabilities for Employment

Scott Bellman

Students take part in the Elevator Pitch ContestCareer counselors and employment recruiters report that many college students and job seekers are not prepared to succinctly describe their skills and abilities to others. Through my work with the DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) Center at the University of Washington, I organized an “Elevator Pitch Contest” to help students build these skills.

The organizing team included career counselors and disability service providers at local colleges, and two college students with disabilities. We worked specifically with students in AccessSTEM-Careers, which promotes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to students and job seekers with disabilities.

An “elevator pitch,” as you may guess, is a brief, informal presentation that can be delivered in the same amount of time as an elevator ride. For our event, the elevator pitches were written as 90-second presentations that focused on students’ experience, skills, and career goals. We offered three practice sessions for those interested in honing their skills before the event.

My first experience with a contest like this was through the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, where I also serve as a member of the education outreach staff. I saw the benefits from the Center’s work on the Perfect Pitch Competition, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and aims to help students talk succinctly about their research in the context of societal needs and a more global impact. UW graduate student and Center member Aiva Ievins won the 2012 competition. For that particular event, Rad Roberts, the Center’s Industry Liaison Officer, recruited coaches and mentors best suited to help students improve presentation skills.

On the day of our event, 23 students delivered their pitches and shared resumes with industry representatives from organizations including Microsoft, the Federal Aviation Administration, AeroJet Rocketdyne, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, URS Corporation, Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind, the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Participants received feedback about improving their pitches and completed informal networking with employers.

The contest is a promising practice for preparing students with disabilities for employment, since all participants reported they learned something new and told us that they felt more confident about their ability to describe their strengths and career goals. Several recruiters said that they would follow up with individual participants about open positions, and they’ve already shared job postings with the community supporting STEM students with disabilitiesus.

Plans are in the works to create guidelines for implementing a similar contest, so the activity can be conducted by other organizations.

AccessSTEM CAREERS is a project of the DO-IT Center at the University of Washington.

The project is funded by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation, which works to make changes for the better by investing in innovative strategies to empower youth with disabilities.