From Gen Z for Gen Z: Marketing Insights for Government Employers
New Report Shares Insights for Government Employers Targeting Gen Z
The US needs technological innovation to solve its most pressing problems—the climate crisis, health care costs, income inequality, and more. Unfortunately, too few people with cutting-edge technology skills are interested in working in the federal government. Only 4 percent of federal government technologists are under 30, while over half are approaching retirement. In addition, many technology roles are outsourced, which prevents the government from building the long-term capacity needed to address complex challenges.
To better understand the problem, the Volcker Alliance launched LevelUp Gov: A Public Service Marketing Contest, to generate new messaging to make government tech jobs attractive to people under 30. The contest, supported by generous funding from Schmidt Futures, gave entrants a chance to create their own recruitment campaigns: fresh, bold messages intended to get the next generation of technology professionals excited about government work.
To select the winning LevelUp Gov campaigns, the Alliance engaged the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) to market-test the top 10 submissions. This paper provides an overview of the content design and results as well as valuable insights generated by BIT’s trial on what resonates best with Gen Z—people born between 1996 and 2010—and what would attract members of this group to federal technology jobs.
