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Article written by James Chapman, CEO of BRS Global for UK Recruiter, covering the HR Directors Business Summit 29th-30th January 2007

A HR Conference from a recruiters view

It was five years ago I last attended an HR conference for UK Recruiter, and it’s taken me this long to dare to go again! Having spent two days at the HR Directors Business Summit in the salubrious confines of the Celtic Manor Resort near Cardiff it just goes to show how attitudes towards recruitment and to an extent, recruiters have changed.

My first attempt at reporting on an HR event lasted about two hours and resulted in me being all but thrown out. The attendees who were, for the most part, aghast there was an actual Recruiter in their midst wanting to write about them, in order for thousands of other recruiters to read about their collective plans. “No, he can’t sit in on our open forum on HR Strategy!!” To be fair this wasn’t an unexpected response for someone who started life as an IT contract recruiter and who had always tried to circuit around HR.

This time round things couldn’t have been more different. Everyone I approached was glad to share their thoughts and views and if asked what my day job is, the more likely response was. “Sustainable Global Talent Pipelining, delivered though HR? Bit of a mouthful, but sounds alright”

HR leaders were able to participate in workshops on relevant topics, lead by their peers who had achieved particular success for their organisations in that area, with presentations on, for example ‘Effective Online Recruitment Campaigns’ This workshop was run by Tim Wood, Director of Staffing at AstraZeneca, About 15 minutes of explanation gave us a detailed insight as to how Tim and his team achieved this and answering questions at the end revealed that, amongst other things he had also built an internal Head Hunting division.

The most talked about session, which I missed, was by Liane Hornsey, Google UK’s HR Director, described as ‘Nurturing Talent - Attracting and developing young talent, identifying leaders and embedding the skills you need for growth’. If you click here you can see the slides from her presentation, taken from the organisers post event CD.

I am writing this from the point of view of a recruiter, with a small ‘r’. The event certainly wasn’t all about recruitment, but there was a fair amount of content around the topic. There were suppliers on-site who had paid not insignificant sums of money to be matched up for short meetings with interested attendees. Suppliers included at least one traditional agency recruitment firm, a Recruitment Process Outsourcer, training suppliers and online solutions suppliers of almost every conceivable type.

Did the suppliers think they were getting value for their investment? As they were having relatively few meetings over the two days, late cancellations or ‘no shows’ could sway their chances of returning a profit. On the whole, the experienced ones were pragmatic and over a year of these types of event, felt it generally evens itself out. In any case, there were more than enough opportunities to meet and network with potential customers, especially at the lunches and main dinner.

Needing to get a quote from at least one speaker of note, and in order to fully justify my use of the UKRecruiter expense account, which along with many others, was tested during and after the main dinner and casino entertainment. Vance Kearney, VP HR EMEA at Oracle, said he had ‘thoroughly enjoyed the networking opportunities’.

In the end, this was a well-balanced event for all concerned. HR Leaders got the opportunity to hear about and participate in the debate on the newest trends in their sector. Suppliers and HR buyers could meet during structured meeting times when Panel Discussions and Workshops were not in session.

Funniest moment:

There were some amusing moments, including one speaker who spent much of the allotted time talking about their own organisation and how ‘crap’ it is.

Oddest debate - in the main hall:

Whatever it started out as, it ended up with a conversation about ‘what should we call ourselves? Human Resources, Personnel or People Leadership?’

Minor Gripes:

Running out of red wine at the main dinner
Lack of decent lighting in the supplier and delegate meeting area.

Things I didn’t mention:

Incredible air display by www.2excelaviation.com
Simon Weston OBE after dinner speech. The Falklands veteran is now Non-Executive Director and Executive Coach with www.sfl-inspire.com

Would I go again? If I were an HR Leader, definitely.

As a supplier, yes, I think I would. Recruitment is a function of delivering a solution to the business, which there are many ways of doing, and which HR is increasingly taking control over. It’s not about what you do in the recruitment process, it’s about getting involved at the critical point.

James Chapman runs BRS Global, a cross-sector Talent Acquisition organisation that specialises in Identifying Nurturing and Delivering Sustainable Talent Pipelines across Global Markets. www.brsglobal.com