If you’ve been following me for a while on here or on social media, you’ll know I’ve been slowly trying to gain more experience in public speaking, alongside sharing my tips on being a first time conference speaker and how to increase your confidence on the stage.

I’m delighted to say that I’ll be returning to the stage at the Lead Developer London conference this June where I’ll be talking about my experiences hiring through an anonymous recruitment process and how this lead my team to conduct some very interesting research into what might put off traditionally marginalised job seekers from applying.

As you may suspect, the story is another example of technology falling woefully short when it comes to solving people problems, but I won’t give the game away fully! the talk will be available on YouTube after the event if anyone is intrigued to learn more about how the story ends…

This is going to be my largest speaking opportunity yet as the conference is expected to have over 1300 senior attendees. In all honesty, I’m kind of bricking it and slightly hating myself for applying in the first place. But that’s the thing about personal growth, it’s painful. Like training for a marathon or learning a new skill - it’s bound to feel uncomfortable in the moment, but you find your abilities expanding as you stretch yourself. Often you don’t even realise you’ve improved or made a difference until well after the event.

This is what I’m telling myself as the butterflies threaten to overwhelm my stomach and send me on an anxious merry-go-round of self doubt. It helps though that I have a sort-of mission to fulfil.

For several years one of my big drivers has been focused around sharing my personal story to help more women and underrepresented groups realise that they do and should have a place in the tech industry.

As a History graduate who is more interested in writing words and defining products/processes, as opposed to writing and shipping code, I felt very out of place at the beginning of my career until I realised that there are people like me in tech. Just not enough of them, yet.

If you’re attending the conference and fancy hanging out in a break or at the afterparty, I’d love to hear from you!

Drop me a line on bethan@bethanvincent.com or catch me on Twitter @bethanvincent