This past Saturday an event was held at Best Buy headquarters in Minneapolis called MinneBar. No, not that kind of bar, although there was some of that after it was over.
This is a BarCamp style event with 1,000+ Minneapolis and St Paul tech folks gathered for a day-long structured unconference to talk about techie, geeky, and nerdy things.
The event is free, including parking, lunch, and post-event beer.
Number of recruiters or HR folk in attendance: less than 10.
WHAT???
All I hear is that companies of all sizes and varieties are having a hard time hiring tech people and the “war for talent” is being tossed around again in our area.
So I wonder … where were all the recruiters?
Some of you may be thinking, “But Paul, it was Easter weekend.”
True. But last year this event was held in May and the numbers were the same. And the year before that too.
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Last year I wrote this article for the Fordyce Letter: Get Out From Behind the Desk and Network.
I just don’t understand why I see few if any of my corporate and search firm colleagues at user group meetings, associations, and meetups. This seems like an obvious thing to do to me.
We can have talent communities, YouTube videos, online chats, the best candidate experience and (enter here the next shiny tool to come along) but at the end of the day what we do, at least what I think we should do, is create relationships.
Have we forgotten how to do it in person?
Or are we just lazy?
