Handshake Early Talent Awards

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A candid conversation with Handshake Early Talent Award winners

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Imagine: It’s 2030. 30% of the workforce was born after 1996, and every Baby Boomer is over 65. 85% of jobs didn’t exist in 2020, and most of them are tech roles. The landscape of work is changing—and digital skills are more critical than ever. Companies that invest in Gen Z tech talent today will come out ahead tomorrow.

But you may not know that, in spite of all the layoff news and hiring cutbacks in Big Tech, there’s continued interest from college grads to pursue careers in tech roles—in a wider range of industries. Since digital transformation is underway across every industry, now every company has an opportunity to attract tech talent.

That’s why, as part of our annual Handshake Early Talent Awards program, we’re proud to recognize 10 “Tech Transformers.” These employers are innovating early talent strategies to fill their tech talent pipelines, and expanding access to opportunity to launch tech careers—outside of the tech sector.

Find out what it takes to score Gen Z tech talent from these Handshake Early Talent Award-winning Tech Transformers.

What are Early Talent Award Tech Transformers?

Tech Transformers are employers that have won Handshake Early Talent Awards, and are using Handshake in innovative ways to recruit technical early talent. This year’s Tech Transformers are:

largely in industries outside of technology

pursuing digital transformation

taking advantage of changing market dynamics to compete for tech talent

rapidly hiring early talent to fill in-demand tech roles.

Why are the Handshake Early Talent Awards recognizing Tech Transformers?

In this fast-approaching future, employers that proactively engage diverse, skilled, early talent—and create career opportunities for workers from all backgrounds into tech roles—will outperform their competitors.

Tech Transformers are using a range of strategies to attract tech talent, including:

skills-based hiring to reach beyond traditional majors,

emphasizing the opportunity for impact at their organization, and

working to attract students not just to their brand, but to the types of problems they can help solve.

Which employers made the Tech Transformer list?

This year there are 10 employers that are being recognized as Tech Transformers, in addition to winning Handshake Early Talent Awards:

Amtrak

Amtrak’s STEM internships, such as in Engineering, Network Support, and IT, include site-visits and tours, project-based work, and introductions to leadership to help students visualize the impact of their work—and a potential tech career at Amtrak. Amtrak uses Handshake to source for their tech roles through tech-specific programs, including at trade schools and community colleges.

Chevron

Chevron is building a workforce to propel the integration of energy and tech. They offer STEM internships and early career opportunities, and are piloting an agile approach to recruiting for strategic functions like IT and PetroTech. Handshake helps Chevron build their brand as an employer of choice to attract tech talent.

Fidelity

Fidelity’s new tech hires, which account for 18% of their workforce expansion, include full stack software engineers, data scientists, mobile/iOS engineers and architecture professionals. Fidelity uses Handshake to uplevel their brand through a digital presence, increase diversity representation in their talent pool, and create efficiency for their teams hiring thousands of candidates a year.

General Motors

General Motors is committed to an “all-electric future” and is using Handshake to invest in tech talent to support their electric vehicle goals and 50+ digital businesses. They're looking to hire thousands of interns and entry-level positions this year, including to work on their software and hardware teams.

Hilton

Traditionally known as a hospitality brand, Hilton is emphasizing skills in their early talent hiring strategy. The company has been working with Handshake since 2019 to increase personalized outreach and focus on their talent brand, driving awareness to early career job seekers that Hilton is a great place to launch a tech career.

The Home Depot

Internships at The Home Depot offer pathways into tech—including App Development, Systems Analytics, Project Management, Software Development, and others. In fact, 99% of Home Depot interns recommend the company’s internship program. The Home Depot uses Handshake to hire hundreds of skilled early talent individuals into 10 unique business functions, including technology, merchandising, operations, supply chain and more.

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is changing the future of health for humanity. And solving really big problems requires people with unique digital skills. Whether they’re plugging surgeons into AR and VR headsets or building surgical robotics to detect cancer, Johnson & Johnson needs to be at the forefront of tech and digital skills. With Handshake, they’ve embraced skills-based recruiting to build a pipeline for in-demand tech students and are able to focus especially on bringing more women in STEM into their organization.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase has a technology staff of 55,000, which has grown since the pandemic. They’ve hired people with “jobs of the future” skills like cloud computing, data science, A.I. and cybersecurity. JPMC’s efforts to adjust to a digital recruiting landscape, integrate diversity focused recruiting, and roll out a streamlined college student engagement program have been fueled by Handshake.

National Security Agency

Internships at the National Security Agency (NSA) expose students to a wide range of tech careers, like cybersecurity, computer science, engineering, info systems, and math. They are helping drive new interest from Gen Z tech students in government, with tech opportunities in government expanding this year. The NSA is able to connect with skilled tech talent through events and fill vacancies from a wide variety of schools through their engagement on Handshake.

The New York Times

Being in tech at The New York Times means "creating an unparalleled journey" for readers. With a team that includes bootcamp graduates, The New York Times looks for a variety of backgrounds, experiences and skill sets to fill its tech talent pipeline.They use Handshake to increase diversity, especially for their tech-focused engineering internships, across full stack, front end, back end, mobile, R&D, and data.

Learn what it takes to be a Tech Transformer

The call for a truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive world of work is louder than ever as these early-career workers take a seat at the table, and the consequences of ignoring that call are noteworthy. Tech Transformer employers are innovators that are working closely with Handshake to make an impact.

Head to the Handshake Early Talent Awards hub

to learn why these Tech Transformers are winning Gen Z.

Handshake Early Talent Awards

Your game plan for winning early talent

A candid conversation with Handshake Early Talent Award winners

2023 Tech Transformers: 10 great places to launch a career in tech, outside of tech