A junior dev on my team looked crushed. “They rejected my talk,” he said, staring at his laptop. He’d just gotten the canned ‘thanks but no thanks’ email for his first WordCamp application. I’ve seen that look a dozen times. Hell, I’ve been that guy. The immediate reaction is to think it’s a political thing or that you’re not “famous” enough. It’s usually neither. The truth is, getting picked is a skill, and most people go about it all wrong. They’re trying to sell themselves, when they should be trying to solve a problem. These are my hard-won WordCamp application tips, learned from years of being on both sides of the submission form.
My first-ever talk submission, years ago, was a total mess. The title was something clever I thought was brilliant, and the description was all about what “I” was going to teach. It got rejected so fast it made my head spin. Rightly so. It took me a while, and a few years as an organizer myself, to learn that organizers aren’t looking for the smartest person in the room. They’re looking for the clearest solution to a common, painful problem.
Your WordCamp Application is a Product, Not a Bio
Here’s the kicker: organizers are trying to build a balanced schedule for their attendees. They get flooded with submissions—sometimes over a hundred for a two-day event. They don’t have time to decipher your clever title or guess what the audience will learn. Your application needs to make their job easy. I saw a great post over at carlalexander.ca that really drills this home: you have to empathize with the attendees and organizers. A vague talk about “The Power of the REST API” is an instant rejection. A talk titled “Building a Headless Shopify-Powered Kiosk with the REST API” that clearly lists the takeaways? Now you’re talking.
The biggest mistake I see is making it about you. Your first draft will probably be full of “I think,” “I will show you,” “In my experience.” Ditch all of it. Re-write it from the attendee’s perspective. Use “You will learn,” “You will be able to,” and “We’ll walk through.” This simple shift from “I” to “You” forces you to think about the actual value you’re providing. And for god’s sake, submit more than one talk. Submitting two or three non-overlapping topics triples your chances and shows you have range. It gives the organizers options to fill gaps in their schedule. One back-end talk, one front-end, one business process. Perfect.
// --- BEFORE: The Self-Centered Application (REJECTED) ---
Title: My Journey with Advanced Custom Fields
Description: I've been using ACF for years and I want to share my experience. I will discuss how I use it in complex client projects to build flexible content models. I think it's the best plugin for developers.
// --- AFTER: The Attendee-Focused Application (ACCEPTED) ---
Title: Build Maintainable Client Sites with ACF Blocks
Description: Are you tired of clients breaking layouts? In this session, you'll learn how to replace fragile shortcodes and page builder widgets with robust ACF Blocks. We'll build a testimonial block from scratch, covering everything from field registration in PHP to templating with clean HTML/CSS. You'll leave with code you can use immediately to make your sites more stable and your clients happier.So, What’s the Point?
Stop thinking like an applicant and start thinking like an organizer. Your job is to make it impossible for them to say no because your talk so clearly solves a problem for their audience.
- Be Specific: Don’t just say what the topic is. State exactly what problem you are solving for the attendee.
- List the Takeaways: Explicitly write “You will learn…” or “You will leave with…” Don’t make them guess.
- Submit 2-3 Options: Give the organizers choices. It shows you’re versatile and makes you more valuable when they’re trying to fill the last few schedule slots.
Look, this stuff gets complicated fast. If you’re tired of debugging someone else’s mess and just want your site to work, drop my team a line. We’ve probably seen it before.
Getting a talk accepted is a skill you practice. If you get rejected, ask for feedback. Most organizers are happy to give it. Now go fix that submission.
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