HR Futures Conference Take-outs

My wife, she’s always saying how much she loves a good wedding. Once an invite comes in the mail, she gets excited and speaks of nothing else until the day of the event. And then after; after she wants to debrief about it…how did I like the bridal dress, what about the food, wasn’t the food just delish. All that. Me? I’m not big into weddings.

But I love a good conference.

Last week I attended Michael Specht’s HR Futures conference. The event was a one-day intensive get together, with a focus on directions for HR and recruitment. Industry experts like Thomas Shaw from Recruitment Directory, spoke about Web 2.0 in recruitment. It was great to get together with some of these folks, many of whom were nothing more than blogs on a screen before I had the chance to meet them.

Anyway, just as my wife likes to debrief about her weddings, I like to break it down about conferences. (I promise, what follows will not include an assessment of anyone’s outfits!)

1. Social media in recruiting is on the radar: the take-home story on this is that most folks acknowledge the social media form of recruiting is the way into the future

2. Enterprise Wikis will form the future of content collaboration within an organisation

3. Blogs/comments should be seen as a vehicle for discussion for an organisation not something to fear. The term “social proof” was kicked around a bit by me. This describes validation from sources outside an organisation. I’m not keen on the word “proof” now. It denotes something definitive. I prefer the term “social-evidence”.

4. Job boards have some work to do to be part of the social recruiting platform.

In all, a good show, with heaps of blog-fodder. Stay tuned as I unravel, in blogs to come, some of the predictions about future directions in recruitment.