How to Get Your 1st Speaking Gig at a Tech Conference

Key Takeaways

hey folks what's up Stan Bader here let's talk about how you can become a speaker at a tech conference because I I went to PyCon Germany a while ago and I actually gave a presentation there so I was a speaker and so a couple of people have reached out to me after that and asked me about you know how do you actually become a speaker at a tech conference because that seems like that seems like you know a really fun thing and and a really good thing to do for your career and to kind of you know just make yourself more known and and I totally agree with that a it's a lot of fun it's a lot of work too but that's totally worth it it's great for getting in touch with people making new connections you know potentially finding a new job or a better job and I would absolutely encourage you to go for it so coming back to the question how do you actually become a speaker so you can get the famed you know speaker a tag on your badge not that that would matter you know it's actually not a big deal so um okay so you do become a speaker add a larger conference essentially by applying to be a speaker there right like very rarely our conference is going to seek you out if you're not well known as a speaker I mean if you know that like uh it happens to people who are you know that might happen to people who are super well-known who have published you know really well-known books these people will be contacted and people will actually be seeking them out actively but if you're if you're a guy like me or you just want to speak at a tech conference you have to do all the legwork and essentially like pitch your topic to see if you can get in and the way it works is that okay so these conferences they work on a schedule right so let's say the conference will be in in September one year and these people they need to lock down a little like lock in all the speakers they have for the conference probably like in late summer or maybe even before that depending on how the conference is organized this is usually how it works so the most important thing I would say is you got to be early enough to actually be able to pitch your talk you know you need to know about the conference early enough to be able to pitch your talk so you can even have a chance to have it you know reviewed and and have a chance for it to be accepted so you can speak at the conference so definitely know you know when the conference is asking for proposals or they call it a call for proposals where you can submit a talk proposal and then usually the organizers of the conference they will vote on that proposal and then the people who get accepted as speakers they're basically in and then it's all about while putting together the actual talk and in going there and giving the talk so really the critical thing and this is where a lot of people kind of miss out on this is that you need to be early enough to get your proposal in so if you want to speak you know at a conference and let's say six months from now it's probably a good idea to get started like right now or really really soon right start looking for conferences that interest you and for example if you want to speak at a Python conference then you could just search for Python conference on Google or find the Python event calendar and I'm gonna link that in the description where it lists all of the upcoming Python events and you just pick something that's a couple of month out at least look on their site they will all have like web pages for the conference a look there and find out when the call for proposals is now once you know that you will know the deadline when you need to submit your talk and this is where it becomes more interesting because now you actually you know you need to start working on your talk so usually what this looks like depending on how well the conference is organized like maybe they have some kind of form that you need to fill out like a web form you need to fill out and I kind of walk you through what you need to fill in or you can just send them you know some kind of pitch like an email or a PDF asking to accept you as a speaker or sometimes people actually ask you to create a pull request for the conference repository so people can review it there and now however you submit that actual information you want to make sure you cover some key things to go into that proposal because that having like a nice proposal will really really increase your chances of actually getting your talk accepted so the structure that I use and I'm gonna put a link in the description where you can grab just my proposal template and then use that you know for your own proposal so the structure I use well of course I put the talk title try and have some kind of catchy title that actually looks like people would be interested in in watching that talk so put the talk title I always put the intended audience level you know you might say something like this is for beginning Python developers this is for intermediate JavaScript developers this is for advanced web developers just something like that to give people an an idea of what audience you have in mind and then that also shows that you're thinking about this stuff you know 80% of the people who are submitting talks they're not thinking about this stuff they're not thinking about okay how could I benefit the audience how could I benefit the organizers so by putting stuff like that like the intended audience you're actually showing that you care about your audience right when you're speaking you just you don't want to go out there and just talk about stuff that you care about and you're the only person who cares about that right so it always helps to have that reflected in the proposal then I would have a brief description you know just around 400 characters like very short like a 1/2 sentence description that people could quickly get an idea of what your talk is about which also forces you you know yourself to talk to think about what your talk is really about what's the core idea you know I would call that the brief description or core core idea of the talk and then I would give like a proper abstract or some kind of summary that is not just a high-level teaser but sort of a brief you know TL DR like too long didn't read kind of summary you know what's going to be what's the talking to be about what's going to be the introduction to the talk kind of the progression and then the payoff at the end and this could be you know a couple of paragraphs don't go super long shorter is usually better and just try and like lay out that story that you're sharing in the talk and you know you could even like ask yourself what's the question this talk will actually answer what's you know why is this critical information for someone who's watching your talk why why do they why should they care about this why is this a problem because it really helps you put you in this mindset of where you want to produce this talk for people who really care about this stuff and we're actually interested in this and then I always close a proposal with a brief about Me section and this is where you put in stuff that kind of shows what you are about and what your background is and you want to show people you know it's you want to give some indicators of why you're not gonna embarrass the organizers if they decide to bring you in right that's kind of the angle I try and write this under so for example people are worried about bringing in super boring speakers so if you have proof that you're you're gonna be an engaging speaker who's not gonna board the audience to death and you know I started out as a boring speaker and I feel like I you know I probably still am but I've gotten better so there's ways to grow that skill but basically what you know I want not trying to like discourage you but I want to encourage you to share this information if you have proof you know that that that would point out that you can be a good good thing it would be good thing to bring you on a speaker for example if you have a YouTube channel you know kind of like I'm sitting here talking to the camera someone could look at that be like okay I would hire this guy to be a speaker bring him on as a speaker it girls B could also go the other way and someone could go go you know what is this super boring I don't care you could get rejected for that but it really you know it gives people a sneak preview of what you're gonna be about where you're gonna be like as a speaker if you have a blog if you have a website absolutely point people to your blog because they're gonna learn what you're about and what your skills are and why you know why your what do you have to say about this topic right like what is your expertise in this in this topic in this area so definitely put a link to that put a link to Twitter and people if you're using Twitter you know people can see that you're engaging with people and sharing stuff and can just get a feel for you always put your contact information and if you have previous speaking previous speaking experience always put that in there as well right like you know I you might just give a quick list off conferences you've spoken out before or meetups you've spoken out before and this is kind of what I would put into a conference talk proposal now and I'm gonna come to this and talk about this in another video if this sounds like too much work then there's also an easier route where you're not trying to get into you know a proper like full-on tech conference like PyCon but you're trying to speak maybe you'll speak at a meet-up first write this is how i got started like speaking out meetups and giving presentations in these in these other events just to kind of build up my my credibility as a speaker in my skill as a speaker so this was kind of the rundown of how you actually submit a talk and and what would go into that proposal but stay tuned for another video where I talk about kind of ways you can get started with this easier you know trying you go for it absolutely submit talks and write proposals and try to get in if you can do that great yeah I think you have a great chance of getting in actually if you put like put in a proper proposal there's a big chance you'll will actually get in but if that sounds a little bit too scary then check out this other video that I'm probably also gonna link at some point here now in the video and check that out and I'll speak a little bit about that