The United States needs technological innovation to solve its most pressing problems—the climate crisis, health care costs, and more. Unfortunately, too few people with cutting-edge skills are interested in working in the federal government. Only 4% of federal government technologists are under 30, while over half are approaching retirement.

How can we attract Gen Z to federal technology jobs? To help answer this question, 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. Gen Z entrants created their own social media recruitment campaigns to get their peers excited about government work.

The Volcker Alliance partnered with the Behavioral Insights Team to market test the top 10 submissions. The trial generated practical insights on what resonates best with Gen Z and what would attract members of this group to federal technology jobs. This paper provides an overview of the contest design, results and insights from the trial.