Hiring Success is almost here! February 11th-12th, TA leaders from around the globe will congregate at the Marquis Marriott in San Francisco to shape the future of talent acquisition. Where will you be?

With sessions ranging from social justice to inclusive leadership, social media recruiting, gender equality, cutting edge AI deployment and more, it’s hard to imagine a more inspiring conference than Hiring Success. Over 1,200 attendees will share in the insights of veteran recruiting and talent acquisition leaders from companies like Amazon, Visa, IBM, LinkedIn, Bosch, and more.

Below you’ll find seven profiles of speakers presenting at this year’s conference. A preview of coming attractions! 

Dr Steven Jones: JONES, Traveling Monk

Nationally known as one of “America’s Top Experts on Diversity” (Diversity, Inc., 2005), Dr. Jones’ philosophy is to lead with listening to support clients in finding a strategy and solution that works for them. 

Dr. Jones holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, a Master’s in Multicultural Counseling, and a Ph.D. in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology. He is the author of Journey to Excellence, a transformational book helping people define and achieve excellence in their lives.

In the global arena, while he was studying business practices in Chang Mai, Thailand, Dr. Jones became the first person of African descent to be ordained as a Buddhist Monk at a 700 year old monastery called Wat Umong.

Jones will be leading a session on Inclusive Leadership.

Carlos Fernandez: Houston Methodist, Manager of Talent Acquisition

Carlos Fernandez currently oversees talent acquisition strategy, employer branding, and sourcing outreach for a system of eight hotels and a workforce of 23,000+ employees.

Fernandez has over 10 years experience within talent acquisition, project management, learning development, and change management, and has led several technology implementations and processes to enhance the candidate experience. He led the redesign of Houston Methodist’s career site and social media recruitment efforts, increasing overall application volume by 40% since 2016.

Fernandez will be co-leading a roundtable discussion on Candidate Experience.

Gerry Crispin: Principal, CareerXroads

Gerry Crispin founded CareerXroads in 1996 to encourage the transformation of hiring into the 21st century. Today, with his business partner, Chris Hoyt, CareerXroads is in its second decade as a member driven community of Talent leadership teams from 130 major firms who are devoted to learning from and helping one another improve and succeed.

Among other achievements, he has co-authored eight books on the evolution of staffing, and has written hundreds of articles and white papers on similar topics. His career spans fifty years and includes Consulting, Recruitment Advertising, HR leadership positions with Fortune 100 employers, Executive Search and Career Services at the University where he graduated with his BE and in Engineering and IO/Psychology degrees.

Crispin will be leading the following session: What Keeps You Up At Night?

Jonathan Mears: VISA, Head, Global Executive Talent Acquisition

As a global HR and talent executive, Jonathan Mears is known for driving innovation in developing markets. He is currently responsible for Visa’s Global Executive Talent acquisition and delivery across all markets, leading Executive Talent teams to deliver internal and external talent, and Visa’s HR Leadership team.

Mears previously led large cross geographic and functional teams for IBM in 14 countries supporting LATAM, North America, Europe, MEA and Asia Pacific. His areas of expertise include leadership of high performance teams, employment branding and strategic sourcing, contract negotiation, business development, retention, redeployment, and more. 

Mears will be co-leading a roundtable on Interviewing Skills.

Lawrel Aufmuth: Advantage Solutions, Vice President, Talent Acquisition

Lawrel Aufmuth is Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Advantage Solutions. She is an innovator and HR professional with extensive experience in the private and public sector with growth organizations.

Lawrel is well known for delivering measurable results through creative, “out of the box’ solutions that build best in class measurable human capital strategies. Lawrel Aufmuth knows TA in and out, and is an expert in using Artificial Intelligence (RPA & ML & NLP) to bring organizations to new heights. 

Aufmuth will be leading the following session: Turning Recruiting Into a Profit Center.

Sarah Yang: Former Talent Brand & Diversity Lead at Getaround

Sarah Yang is the former Talent Brand & Diversity Lead at Getaround. She crafts and nurtures compelling stories on why Getaround is a wonderful place to work and has over fifteen years of experience in creating videos, blogs, and social media that are critically acclaimed. Yang is the recipient of the prestigious MarCom Platinum Award, which she won for the global recruiting video she co-produced for Workday. 

In addition to being a TA leader, she is a professional drummer, filmmaker, poet, comedian, and improv actor, and a magnetic and animated speaker on creativity (the #1 soft skill according to LinkedIn), diversity, and storytelling to global audiences (i.e. Grace Hopper, Cisco, Workday, Oracle, CoderDojo, Lesbians Who Tech, and Women Who Code).

She will be leading the following session: Convincing Your HMs to Value Diversity Hiring.

Hung Lee: Recruiting Brainfood, Curator

Hung Lee is the founder and CEO of WorkShape.io – the revolutionary recruiting platform for Software engineers and Editor of leading industry newsletter Recruiting Brainfood. He is an industry professional with over 15 years experience as an agency recruiter, recruitment manager, Internal Head of Talent, recruitment trainer and strategic advisor for rapid growth businesses.

Cramped hotel conference rooms and uncomfortable chairs are the banes of many recruiting conferences, but here’s how SmartRecruiters is flipping the script on the traditional industry events.

What was the last conference that truly excited you? What made it unique—the sessions, the networking, the food? Did it have a unique structure, or did it follow the traditional format of sit, listen, stand up, talk? More often than not, industry conferences fall into the latter category, where most event attendees inch towards the closest exit first chance they get. No one is a fan of stuffy conferences, and that’s why SmartRecruiters seeks to redefine the experience for talent acquisition professionals everywhere. 

Hiring Success EU isn’t designed to test your passive listening skills; in fact, participation is encouraged. Every session is designed to be interactive, giving audiences the opportunity to absorb insightful content in a refreshingly new way. In addition to the speaker-led sessions, there are countless workshops and round table discussions where TA and HR leaders can roll up their sleeves and learn as a group. 

The recruiting community is unique for its focus on shared knowledge. We are constantly working together to share ideas, perspectives, and best practices on talent acquisition so that every organization can build better hiring processes that attract the best talent possible. SmartRecruiters feels this approach is necessary to create both a memorable experience and make a lasting impact on how people think about recruiting. 

Hiring Success EU kicks off September 10-11 in Amsterdam, and here is a sampling of what attendees can expect at this non-traditional conference:

1. Reverse Recruiting
Reverse Recruiting is our way of taking action to connect overlooked candidates to jobs at scale. At this year’s Hiring Success EU, 300 interviews will simultaneously take place between audience members and hopeful job seekers, including formerly incarcerated individuals, refugees, transgender people, people with disabilities, and more. These impromptu interviews offer them a chance to practice their interview skills, make connections with current TA professionals, and boost their self-confidence in finding gainful employment. This-meet-and-greet-format will create new bridges of friendship, mentorship, and jobs between our communities. Isn’t that what recruiting is all about?

2. The Hackathon
Twenty technologists invested countless hours over the last few months to create unique hacks and APIs built on the SmartRecruiters platform. Now, these innovators can demo their builds in real-time at the conference. Here’s the catch: Every attendee starts with 1000 “wow points” to invest in the teams they believe have the greatest impact on the future of recruiting technology. The top 3 teams that receive the most investment will be sent to the final round to battle it out for fortune—$10k in sponsorship at Hiring Success 20—and glory.

3. Session: Make your Organization a Microcosm of the World
One of the best-kept secrets in recruiting is the extra-ordinary output of neurodiverse people. Many of us are neuro-diverse—we just don’t know it.  Sara-Jane Harvey, aka Agony Autie, is a world-class activist for neurodiversity and returning Hiring Success speaker, having debuted at Hiring Success Americas earlier this year. Now, she’s back to expose truths about how making offices accessible for autistic people have far-reaching benefits for companies, employees, and the potential to transform the world economy.

4. Session: Reflecting Freedom
Self-imposed limitations are created when our choices and actions are dictated by automatic responses and unquestioning beliefs. Understand these limitations and find freedom from the prison of the mind. This session will take attendees through an inspiring journey of grit, and who better than to tell it than Khalil Osiris, who spent 20 years in prison. During his time in incarceration, he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Boston University. Khalil is now an author, educator, social activist, and CEO of Reflecting Freedom, a social enterprise company. 

5. Session: Getting Smarter
What will your hiring mix look like in 10 years? Get this question right and you’ll see your stock soar. Get it wrong, and you’ll spend your time playing catch up. This session will bring a much-needed perspective from the navigation technology and consumer electronics company TomTom on how it discovered the ideal hiring mix. This session is presented by Thomas Waldman, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at TomTom, leveraging his 20 +years of experience in recruiting and sourcing to discuss how TomTom conducted its own internal discovery and transformation.  

6. Session: Becoming an Inclusive Leader
What does an aikido master and the first ordained African-American meditation master, who also advises Fortune 50 CEOs have to teach company leaders? Find out in this participatory session that is sure to strengthen everyone’s leadership skills. Dr. Steven Jones, who—among numerous accomplishments and accolades—is the CEO of JONES, a consulting firm specialized in diversity and organizational effectiveness, teaching the value of inclusive leadership.

Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of this one-of-a-kind recruiting conference. Where else can you make a positive impact on someone’s life, flex your entrepreneurial muscle like a VC, or learn from a curated selection of activists, speakers, and TA leaders from around the globe? You will find it all here at Hiring Success EU. To find out more about what to expect, visit our website and secure your tickets before September 10th—see you there!

It’s pleasant to remember the hire that made your team better, but try, for a moment, to recall the hires that made everything worse. The people who plunged your team into a death spiral and you kept for way too long.

Robert Merril wants you to remember why you hired those people – was the process rushed? Were you blinded by their perfect pedigree? Remeber why, so you don’t ever make those mistakes again. There’s no reason to, not with Robert around to help.

Not making that terrible hire is what Robert’s been helping companies do since 2001 as a consultant and as Head of Global Recruiting for Ephesoft. He fixes broken recruiting systems, helps companies improve their employer brand, improves candidate experience, and trains your hiring managers to do the same once he’s left.

He joins us at Hiring Success 18 March 12-14 in San Francisco (register here!) to share what he’s learned about building a hiring process from the ground up that results in quality, timely, and unbiased hires.

Get a preview of his session here and learn why his motto is ‘hire smart, manage tough’ and how he thinks recruiters can use technology better.

What does the concept of ‘Hiring Success’ mean to you?

Hire and retain great people from a diverse background of experiences and abilities. Smoothing the process of recruitment so that the candidate comes first and companies find themselves naturally avoiding biases in their decision making.

Explain ‘hire smart or manage tough’.

Any executive can point to a hire they’ve made who bolstered their team, drove results and improved things wherever they went. From a superstar salesperson that could close any deal, to an exceptionally detailed accountant. Often, these hires actually go unnoticed because they are so good at helping everything improve, people begin to think everything has always been this way. Everyone is happier, more loyal and productivity steadily improves across the team.

But there’s also the opposite. Bad fits, who left a wake of destruction. Most challenging, these hires are sometimes the most-refined interviewees, have the best pedigrees, or were a referral from someone important who passed the resume along with a wink and a nudge.

Some will look back admitting they were too fast to hire and then acted too slow in letting that person go, only realizing later the toll the person was taking on themselves and their team. ‘Hire Smart’ means making sure you take the time to find the right fit and ‘manage tough’ means you act quickly when the fit is bad.

What’s happening in a company that they would need to call you?

1. You need to hire and you don’t know how to do it. Please don’t attempt this at home. Starting right will solve years of headaches down the road.
2. You’re hiring too fast and you feel that the wrong people are joining…  efficiency is replacing effectiveness. Or in other words, you fear the bar is being lowered.
3. You look around the room and realize everyone has the same ideas, everyone is too congenial, always smiling at you, and nobody argues about anything (intelligently). If everyone agrees on EVERYTHING, that’s a clue you may not have enough diversity of thought happening within your team.

Where on the list of priorities should recruitment be?

Personally, it’s top on my list, because that’s what I do. I think most companies today will agree that to compete, you need to find great people and always be on the lookout for talent. Not always the very best people (pedigree, etc) but the people who will work best in that company and with that team.

How do you integrate onboarding and retention into the recruiting process? Or how can you recruit with that end goal in mind?

Salespeople say ‘always be closing’, or ‘ABC.’ I try to take the mindset of ‘ABO’ – ‘always be onboarding.’ I talk with the candidate as if they’re already here. I help them imagine what the first few months of the job will be like and the problems they will be able to solve. I follow that up with purposefully ensuring they get connected to key people they will rely on later in the first days and months of their job, as well as documents that walk them through the onboarding process. My HR partner and I collaborate weekly on onboarding.

How do recruiters use technology now? 

Recruiters are scrappy and always trying to engage people wherever they can. However, HR department budgets seem to think of recruiting technology as a last resort. I think a baseline has to be a system of record for all candidates and all processes to flow from for recruiting. One that makes recruiters more productive, not less. One that engages people who are NOT recruiters. You know you’re winning when interviewers and hiring managers are using your recruiting tool, not just the people who are forced to use it!

…and what would you change?

I think messaging needs to improve. Text and chat are not going away and they could be harnessed more effectively than they are now. Especially around a core interface with, I hate to use this term, a unified messaging inbox. Also, video calls/voice and simple person-to-person conversations should be easier, not harder to do these days.

Scheduling is also still hard. Our lives are all digital, but getting a candidate booked on the calendar with the right people still takes a Ph.D. and a winning lotto ticket sometimes to pull it off. How do we ease that heavy-lifting?

We could do better learning from e-marketers about how to use tools to attract and delight passive candidates. We could use data more intelligently and in more real-time ways to hone our own skills.

We could talk to the candidate (customer) more. We could find ways to help them help us do our jobs better. We could aggressively find ways to lower the ‘iron curtain’ of HR secrecy and help candidates improve their interactions with us through better information sharing.

Why do face-to-face conferences matter in the digital age?

We still talk animatedly about that time we met someone influential in person. Interpersonal interaction is even more valuable now that we seem to have it less and less. As recruiting is more and more virtual, being able to sit around the proverbial camp-fire with war-hardened industry veterans is exciting. There’s no better place to generate great ideas than when smart people come together to discuss challenging things.

As we all know, tech conferences can be fun, if slightly nerve-wracking, affairs. Sure, they’ll be plenty of networking, chatting and partying, but you’ll also likely be running around, desperately trying to squeeze every last drop of goodness from the proceedings.

Your success in such endeavors will largely depend on two things: First, the quality of the conference in question, and second, how you personally navigate the various conference halls and networking events.

For SmartRecruiters’ upcoming Hiring Success 18 conference, we’ll handle the first of those two elements, while the second is up to you. Luckily, we’ve got a veteran conference connoisseur, William Tincup, to give you a hand on planning your Hire18 strategy.

As President of RecruitingDaily, William certainly knows a thing or two about attending, and speaking at, tech conferences. As a confirmed speaker for Hire18, we took the opportunity to quiz him on conference etiquette, and ask what he expects to see trending in 2018.

How important are tech conferences and HR events for the industry in general?

They are extremely important to HR, recruiting, hiring managers and executives of any firm. Talent is the business of ANY business, ahem, let me say that again — talent IS the business. So the more we know (about hiring success) the better we become. The better we become (at hiring success) the more the value of the business increases. Meaning, we need to start thinking of recruiting as a competitive advantage for the companies we represent. So with that as the backdrop, what else could possibly be MORE important than those few days?

Fair enough. With that in mind, what are your favorite things about conferences such as Hire18?

Meeting new people, hearing new stories. I know what I know. I want to know things I do not know. I’m a greedy bastard – I mean, career learner – in that way. I’m a storyteller and I learn via storytelling. That’s the best thing about important gatherings like this for me, the stories.

If you were talking to a person who is attending their first big tech conference, what advice would you give them in order to get the most out of it?

Leave your electronics at home. Work will be there when you get back. Go all in and go to every session you can. Attend every networking occasion that you can – breakfast, lunch, dinners, coffee breaks, etc. Really maximize your experience, meet new people, talk with them about what’s keeping you up at night and learn what’s keeping them up. Share your best practices freely with anyone that will listen. And for those lacking common sense; wear comfortable shoes, drink lots of water, and don’t get drunk and make an ass of yourself. No one likes that guy.

What are some big conference no-nos to avoid?

Wear name badges. I know, no one looks great with a giant lanyard jacking up their attire but, it makes it easier to talk with folks you don’t know (and in my case, sometimes people I’ve known for years). This will sound a little parental but don’t stay out late, don’t sleep in and/or miss sessions. This isn’t a vacation – it’s where you advance your career. That’s how you should treat it at least. Now, that said, I might have a shot a Patron or two but I have a wooden leg, so do as I say, not as I do.

In your mind, what are the ingredients of a great, successful conference?

Keynotes, which are supposed to be three things: (1) educational, (2) inspirational, and (3) entertaining. So expect that out of those sessions. Be sure to visit the partners at the conference. They are paying big bucks to be there but that’s not the reason to spend time with them. The real reason is that you want to see cool new tech and this is a lovely opportunity to do so. So grab a branded frisbee or a flash drive and demo cool software. I’d also suggest that you seek out speakers and talk with them when they’re not on stage. For example, Bill Boorman is speaking at Hire18, Bill literally knows more about global recruiting than anyone I know. He’s British yet oddly approachable. So, seek Bill out and talk him up.

What do you think will be the biggest talking points of Hire18?

Well, I’ll be looking for two things; (1) real use cases where folks are using some of the oft-mentioned technological advancements – AI, chatbots, blockchain – not just for insight but where said insight actually leads them to action – and/or tells them what to do – and (2) real use cases where folks have combined different apps across talent acquisition to reduce friction while getting quality, cost, experience, and speed right.

In my opinion, it’s not enough to integrate recruiting technology. It has to be integrated in a way where six things can happen simultaneously: (1) increase in quality of hire, (2) increase in speed of hire, (3) decrease in recruiting costs, (4) candidates love the experience/process, (5) recruiters love the experience/process, and, (6) hiring managers love the experience/process. That’s the goal, I want to hear those stories. 

Which of these aforementioned emerging technologies do you think has the biggest potential for recruitment?

Bots are probably the easiest for people to understand, build, deploy and see the value. AI is all about the long tail. As for potential, most advancements in recruiting technology have potential, but potential alone doesn’t guarantee success. Think of all these advancements like tools in a toolbox. You still need to know how to hammer a penny nail. Meaning, part of this “potential” is about understanding, and part of it is about experimenting with said tools. Lastly, we’re in the embryonic phase of all these advancements.

A year has now passed since Hire17. How has the recruitment industry changed in that time?

The noticeable change in the last 18 months is that we’ve gone from “kind of” talking about AI, (machine learning, NLP, and bots) to every conversation being dominated by our new normal. I think the fear of these technology advancements permeated the industry but that tension has seemed to lessen over the last year.

Obviously, it’s natural to fear advancements in tech. If you owned a horse and buggy shop when cars were first invented, you probably thought it was a fad and/or that it wouldn’t impact your life/business. I think most recruiters first thought AI would displace them and/or render them useless. Nowadays, I think most logical and reasonable recruiters have started to think of AI as a partner in their efforts to recruit the best and brightest talent.

Hiring Success 18 is due to take place in San Francisco, March 12-14. Grab your tickets and check out the agenda here.

The financial crisis of 2008 had many predicting the end of trade shows, but 10 years later, the convention industry is thriving with this weeks CES show in Vegas acting as living proof.

The collapse of the US housing market in 2008 rippled through every industry around the globe, and trade shows were no exception. Companies forced to lay off workers could hardly justify the expense of traveling to and participating in B2B events – especially when the internet provides a viable option for promoting and finding new goods and services.

The trade show market shrunk by 3.1 per cent in 2008 and then by another 12.5 percent in 2009.

But the upbeat trade show industry proved too bubbly to be quelled by just any old worldwide economic downturn. Just two years after the market crash – which saw the trade show market shrink by 3.1 percent in 2008, followed by 12.5 percent in 2009 – the trade show sector began its steady recovery with consecutive growth from 2010 to 2016.

Taking place from January 9-12, CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is a great illustration of the industry’s recovery as a whole. It’s rolled out annually in Las Vegas by the Consumer Technology Association to flaunt the latest and greatest in pioneering tech. The conference suffered a 20 percent attendance loss in 2009 but has since built its numbers back up, with this year marking a record 4,000 companies participating, including familiar names like Dell, Bosch, and Techcrunch.

Predicted 44 percent growth in convention and event-based jobs between 2010 to 2020.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has predicted a 44 percent growth in convention and event-based jobs from 2010 to 2020 and, if we take CES as an example, the numbers seem right on track. In 2010, the conference boasted a sizeable 120,000 visitors but fast forward to 2017 and the number has grown to 170,000. And, if the hype proves true, CES will welcome an additional 14,000 in 2018, making a grand total of 184,000 for the year.

But the industry’s recovery wasn’t always so certain. After the conference market shriveled in 2009, predictions were austere. The trade show magazine Exhibitor found that 31 percent of businesses planned to decrease their trade show spending in 2010, but the gloomy marketscape seemed to have no effect on the industry analysts who insisted with unrelenting positivity that the market would stabilize and grow. In the long run, these Pollyannas were vindicated. A 2017 report from Statista shows 29 percent of companies now plan to increase their event budgets (up from 15 percent in 2010), with only 23 percent of businesses predicting a decrease.

Four out of five people who attend trade shows have buying power.

A report from CEIR points out that four out of five people who attend B2B events, such as trade shows or conferences, have buying power. An equally tantalizing 2016 report from Statista also found that 74 percent of attendees were more likely to purchase products they’ve seen at conference branded events like sponsored after-parties or lounges.

And whatever your sector, where better to get together and talk shop? This is the real reason conferences will never die. It’s too fun to talk about your niche industry with other people who live it. Ever gone deep about the pitfalls of matching algorithms or the challenges of engaging hiring managers? Me too! You see your friend’s eyes go vacant as you expound your never-to-be-written thesis on how AI will revolutionize hiring, but you just can’t stop yourself. Conferences are places where that kind of talk is welcome and even productive.

The trade-show industry seems to have taken the financial downturn of 2008 and used it as an opportunity to prove it’s worth in the B2B marketing sector.

So the question isn’t whether trade shows will survive, but whether Vegas has enough Wifi for CES.

SmartRecruiters will be hosting its own face-to-face conference for TA leaders March 12-14 in SanFrancisco. Hire18 is 3 days packed with 200 speakers, and over 100 sessions to inspire, inform, and evolve your hiring practice this year. Register Here!