1:00 AM RECOLLECTIONS FROM AMSTERDAM

Hi all,

Having a great time in Amsterdam Chairing the Global ERE Expo 2006. Amazing delegates (well over 100) and fantastic speaker line-up.

And, before anybody starts ‘yelling’ at me for not hyperlinking everybody I reference in the article (I had this happen to me when I wrote about starting to use ecto as my desktop blogging tool), please go the Expo site where all of the speakers and vendors/sponsors/exhibitors are linked. Also, have a look at David’s Hire Calling and Todd’s World of Talent sites for pictures and a blow by blow description of the first day.

I would just like to highlight a few points (that I used in my day one summary).

Challenges facing Global/Local recruiters

• Demographic time bomb – there just are not enough bodies to fill all of the talent requirements.
• Multiple stakeholders – internal and external
• Changing the habits of a lifetime – recruiter, hiring manager and candidate
• Sourcing vs Recruiting
• How to simplify complex tasks
• Need to build business cases for technology, marketing, change

Key messages/Themes

• Collaboration between global strategists and local recruiters
• Business growth requires better retention and leads to better recruitment
• Demographics is also an opportunity – cross border recruitment
• Everything is about the candidate experience, or lack thereof
• We need a better Value Proposition to differentiate the recruitment offering

• Brand – attraction (external) and retention (internal)
• Personal Experience

• Matching, not Searching (this is a recurrent theme - and the future of recruitment!)

• Targeted ‘content’ or messaging to candidates
• Relevancy of the content/job proposition

• Take on consumer based communications

• Respect and relationship building

• Standardisation and structure

• Tools – selecting and rolling out
• Processes
• Taxonomy

• Do research before, during and after all activities
• Measure the results

Alan’s conclusions from Day One:

1. All speakers and delegates share one common trait: Passion for excellence in recruitment
2. Do not throw away what has worked in the past, while embracing the future
3. The future of ‘Web 2.0’ technology is; Power To The People

Can't wait for today to start - another great line-up awaits in 6 short hours

Technorati Tags: Candidate attraction, e-recruitment, ERE, jobster, online matching

Comments

[Niels Welten]

Hello Alan,

Thanks for responding to my postings about the conference in Amsterdam.

Most of the sessions were very insightful to me. But I also learned that focus of HR within some global companies is strangely enough still on processes (1) and recruitment advertising costs instead of investments in a employer brand (2). Anyway, I will attend again when you are coming back to A'dam.