Though I’ve been a writer for ERE Media over a year now, and I’ve been to many, many ERE Recruiting Conferences in the past, it has been years since I’ve attended this event. Needless to say, I’m pretty pumped about being in San Diego this week soaking up some recruiting know-how.
If you’re attending, find me and say hello.
The conference is likely to provide plenty of fodder for future blog posts and tweets, but with just a few hours before liftoff, here are my five must-see presentations this week, in no particular order.
- Seeing 360 Degrees of Your Employment Brand, featuring James Ellis, senior manager, employment brand, Groupon — I first heard James speak at an event last year, and dude knows his stuff. I’m hungry for more. He’s also not shy about bashing wannabe players on the vendor side. He also has a pretty solid podcast, if you’re into that sort of thing.
- Machine Learning / AI Roles Will Dominate Your Firm – How Recruiting Must Prepare, featuring Dr. John Sullivan, professor of management, San Francisco State University — My brain usually feels like it’s just completed a marathon after the doc gets done dropping knowledge, but I’m always smarter for the investment of time. It’s also cool when such a grizzled veteran tackles a topic such as AI.
- Blockchain – What’s It All About & Why You Should Care, featuring Kevin Wheeler, founder, Future of Talent — Thankfully, Wheeler’s not on the same day as Sullivan, or else my head might explode from all the brainpower. Wheeler brings a unique combination of high tech and high touch in his presentations, which is a rarity in any business, let alone recruiting. Big hat tip to another industry stalwart tackling a timely topic.
- The Future of Video in Recruitment, featuring Audra Knight, recruitment operations manager, Tenable — The self-proclaimed employment brand boundary breaker is a new kid on the conference block and brings a ton of vim and vigor to her online presence, which I’m excited to see translate to the stage. She’s the only one on this list I’ve never seen present before, which adds to the anticipation. Her topic is a good one, especially in light of everything LinkedIn is doing lately, but if she starts touting video resumes, I may have to hiss and boo.
- What’s Next, featuring Steve Levy, principal at Recruiting Inferno — Truth be told, I reserved a later flight home just to make sure I didn’t miss Levy’s presentation, which is the last one on the last day. My man holds know punches and simply tells it like it is. He’s also incredibly transparent in his opinion and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t understand the concept of political correctness. You’ve been warned.
Of course, like any conference these days, the people are the greatest draw and most important asset. In a world dominated by digital fingerprints and professional profiles, it’s always nice to come back to earth from time-to-time and remind yourself that there are real people doing real things and solving real problems in our business.
Let’s do this.