This week I am heading to RecruitFest 2009 in Toronto, Canada.
RecruitFest is a non-traditional event that is about building relationships and with a priority on face-to-face networking. It is focused on about taking your online relationships offline, which is certainly a good thing.
Technology plays such a key role in corporate recruiting today, and one of the main goals I have at RecruitFest is to try and get some insights on what the future holds in recruiting and especially in recruiting technology in these areas:
Candidate Experience
How can technology improve the candidate experience while also serving to support corporate initiatives? Most candidates revile the entire application process. From arcane and lengthy online application processes, to lack of feedback, to a feeling that there are two different 'expert' answers to every job search question; candidates really are having a terrible time.
Corporate Data Analysis
What should companies be measuring when evaluating their recruiting efforts? And what are the best technologies and strategies to make these measurements possible? Once you decide that 'Quality of Hire' is what you want to focus on, just what does a 'high quality' hire look like anyway? How much of little responsibility does recruiting have when a new hire does not work out? And how do you pull all of this information together in a timely and understandable manner.
Impact of Social Recruiting
We all know that social networks and social media are influencing, altering, and perhaps fundamentally changing candidate job search and corporate job marketing. But to what extent is this really true? And is it really true only for the largest organizations with significant resources and massive budgets? Can these tools and approaches really be utilized by small organizations and one or two person HR shops to try and level the playing field in the competition for the best talent.
While I expect to learn quite a bit at RecruitFest, the main reason I am attending is to meet in person so many great people I have interacted with online this year. I think that is the real value of attending almost any event, and in particular one like RecruitFest.
I plan on posting from RecruitFest when I can and be sure to follow all the fun on Twitter under the #RecruitFest tag.