The second day of the SmartRecruiters first-ever European conference rolled out another full schedule of sessions, assembled a massive “crowd-sourced” band, and crowned another Recruiting Startup of the Year.

Day two began by looking towards the future of SmartRecruiters’ TA suite, in the opening keynote from Rebecca Carr, SmartRecruiters’ VP of Product. “Competition is fierce—we’re living in a talent economy,” she said, speaking to the packed conference hall in a converted warehouse in East Berlin. “It’s important that we deliver to you tools that are going to give you the capabilities to find and nurture talent well before the point of application.”

With many of the upcoming product updates taking years to develop, it’s clear that anticipating and predicting the needs of users is driving future innovation. Along with a design overhaul and new functionality that improves the first-time candidate experience at every stage of the hiring process, SmartRecruiters also revealed its plans to embed more intelligent features into the product, including the robust SmartJobs, which allows hiring teams to take the guesswork out of job advertising, placing your ads in front of the best candidates for the right price.

“SmartRecruiters doesn’t want to be a replica of the old system you used to use,” said Carr. “We want to be thinking farther ahead in terms of what we can be building and developing. We foresaw problems that you may encounter given how the talent economy is changing around us.”

Navigating change often requires the wisdom and insights of those who have already lived it, especially when it comes to achieving hyper-growth for you organization, chief among which is the ability to embrace failure. “In hyper-growth there is no room for perfectionism,” said Noor van Boven, Chief People Officer at online bank, N26. “You need to be able to make decisions quickly. If you are a true perfectionist you will fail.”

And hyper growth isn’t just a concern for company executives, as “being a leader in hyper growth means everyone can have an impact,” said Jeri Doris, Chief People Officer at Delivery Hero. “You’re building a brand, a product, and a company. That’s not just for leaders, but for recruiters—you are part of that company story.”

One of the most creative and surprising moments at Hiring Success Berlin was the participatory jam session, “Synchronicity”, led by Mehmet Baha, founder and senior consultant at Solution Folder. “We’re going to explore diversity and inclusion through music,” said Baha, who is also a percussionist, as he distributed shakers, drums, and other implements to a bewildered crowd. Baha then led the newly formed Hire18 band through a series of musical exercises, drawing parallels to how each has real-world implications in the workplace.

“Active listening is a crucial part of an inclusive work culture,” said Baha, instructing people to close their eyes and hear how each instrument’s unique sound worked together to create a unified composition.

To close out the conference, SmartRecruiters brought five companies on stage to compete for the title of Recruiting Startup of the Year. With only a few minutes to pitch their company to a panel of expert judges, the startup competition is now a central tenet of every Hiring Success conference. Find out which of the five finalists won over the judges and earned the shiny trophy tomorrow on the Hiring Success Journal.

But before we close the book on the first edition of Hiring Success EU we have to celebrate with an authentically Berlin party experience. Conference attendees who still have the energy will move up the banks of the river Spree to Säälchen, on the grounds of the renowned nightclub Kater Blau, where Berlin’s top techno and house DJs will share the stage with a ten-piece pop brass band, spectacular acrobatic performances, and a surprise guest performance.

Check out our day one conference wrap-up to read more about the sessions and speakers you might have missed.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and check back with the Hiring Success Journal for more #Hire18 insights coming soon.

SmartRecruiters’ first conference in Europe kicked off today in Berlin, with founder and CEO Jerome Ternynck setting the tone for two days of innovation, inclusion, and hiring success.

SmartRecruiters’ latest Hiring Success conference was inaugurated this morning by CEO Jerome Ternynck, who took the stage at the Glashaus, a former industrial space on the Spree river in East Berlin, promptly at 9:30am.

“Hiring success is a truly universal thing,” his voice reverberated throughout the hall, to 400 attendees, “and you are all here representing over 200 organizations from all over the world.

“All you recruiters, TA leaders, innovators, system owners, optimizers,” listed Ternynck, “all of us who’ve dedicated your career to helping companies find talent, to help people find jobs—we are critical to companies’ success.”

As HR Tech gets more sophisticated by the day, so does our community become truly global, as evidenced by the diverse crowds at conferences like this one. Plugging into the future of recruiting over the first of two session-packed days, speakers represented stalwart European players like Deutsche Bahn, Zalando and Lidl, as well as institutions as notorious as CERN and Humboldt University—represented by information-scientist duo, Dr. Juliane Stiller and Dr. Violeta Trkulja, linked hiring to one of the great issues of our age: forced migration.

Not everyone knows what it means to leave behind the life you know and rebuild everything, from the ground up, in an alien city. The scientists did a deep-dive with guests from Bayer and a Deutsche Banker, who is a Syrian refugee himself, into the programs available to refugees now, and how your company could start building its own systems to help integrate into the workforce talented people who need and deserve our help.

“Employers are insecure about the skills and language abilities of refugees,” said Stiller, “and applicants have a tough time knowing the systems for applying. Employers can help by accepting applications without cover letters, offer mobile recruiting, and embracing diversity.”

Another essential topic covered was how technology has changed when and where we work, and to assure this new world of remote work runs smoothly, Beat Buhlmann, one of the few people in the world with a doctorate related to managing virtual teams, the current GM for Evernote laid out the benefits of employing a remote workforce and relayed how to address the challenges created by managing off-site teams, from both a culture and a tech perspective. “It may sound simple, but if a candidate isn’t comfortable with video conferencing or sharing their screen,” he said via Zoom, presumably to prove a metatextual point, “it’s going to be a nightmare.”

To close out the day, Robindro Ullah, TA consultant and author, and Artur Skowronski, software engineer, Virtus Lab, ask the audience: What do Tinder, Amazon, and Alexa have in common?

Answer: they were repurposed by corporate recruiters to source quality talent. The keynote speakers shared some of the most innovative recruiting campaigns ever put together, and led an interactive workshop challenging left-brain functions to raise the bar on workplace creativity.

All this boils down to the premise that brought everyone together, from thousands of miles apart, for these two days: that hiring is the frontline of business success, and the more companies understand that, the better things will be for everyone.

“Who you hire defines your company more than any other activity,” stresses Ternynck. “It defines your outcomes as well as your culture. It defines your success as well as your failures. Who you hire defines you as a leader.”

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and check back with the Hiring Success Journal for lots of #Hire18 insights coming soon.