On Monday, I attended a professional event in London for the first time, and I want to share my experience with you.
More about the event:
#truLondon – is an unconference for recruiters in London. There are no speakers or presentations. Participants form groups and discuss the topics of interest. Discussions in each group are facilitated by experienced track leaders.
The event has been organized and ideated by Bill Boorman since 2009.
The event took place in a pub in an informal setting. It was evident that most participants knew each other. It's a professional gathering with the aim of networking and sharing experiences.
In November, the event will also take place in Kyiv :)
The key takeaways I gathered for myself:
# Recruiting and content are closely interconnected
I was pleasantly surprised to find that at a recruiting event, there were tracks not only on sourcing but also on content. Moreover, even on sourcing tracks, we touched upon topics such as Social Media, Marketing, Employer Branding, and more.
# Find candidates where they dwell
LinkedIn boasts more than 500 million registered users, but how many of them are genuinely active? In contrast, Facebook has more than 2 billion actively engaged users.
Hence, it's not surprising that Facebook is increasingly regarded as the number one resource for candidate sourcing. Every sourcing track we attended touched upon the subject of utilizing Facebook.
Many people still find LinkedIn valuable for screening, as a candidate's profile can provide information about their work history, skills, and more. However, Facebook may soon emerge as the most effective tool for sourcing.
# 80% of technical recruiters in London are male.
In Ukraine, it's common to see women, often without experience, entering IT recruiting. In London, on the contrary, the audience was predominantly composed of mature men. Furthermore, discussions covered not only recruiting topics but also business, digital metrics, and more. I assume that IT recruiters in London have a better image than in Ukraine.
# We are quite well-versed in sourcing.
I was pleasantly surprised that most of the tools or ideas discussed by participants were either actively used in our work or at least experimented with. Perhaps it was influenced by Irina Shamaeva's recent webinar. Many of the resources she mentioned were reiterated at the event.
I attended the following tracks and what I liked:
Steve Ward “Hire Fans not candidates”
Steve expressed the main idea: when hiring, you should not just choose candidates but fans. Of course, it's not possible to fill your entire team exclusively with fans of your company/project. However, if the majority of your employees are "cheering" for the product, using it themselves, and striving to make it better, it will undoubtedly reflect in the company's results.
Where to find fans? Among the followers of your company's pages on Facebook, Linkedin, among the users of your company's product. But, of course, this requires having company pages on social media, actively developing them, and providing valuable content.
How to identify if someone is your fan? These people often like your posts, follow your news, read your content, and are concerned with the same questions/issues. Most likely, you will be speaking the same language with them.
Steve also recently covered this topic on his podcast.
Kasia Borowicz “Sourcing Tricks”
Kasia is originally from Poland but has worked in London and often compared the two countries in her discussions. She runs a blog, conducts training sessions, and has organized a professional community in Poland.
On her track, Kasia emphasized the importance of building long-term relationships with candidates. She sends highly personalized messages and initiates conversations not by mentioning job vacancies but by discussing other topics.
For example, if she sees in a candidate's profile that they recently attended an event, she will start by asking about that event. If she notices that someone has an interesting hobby, she'll inquire about it. She also compliments candidates on their professional achievements and activities, such as writing a blog, speaking at conferences, having an impressive portfolio, and so on.
In this way, she shows a genuine interest in the candidate first and only casually mentions that she has an interesting job opportunity. Of course, this type of communication takes much more time than simply sending a job description to a candidate. However, it helps her stand out, build trust, and ensures that candidates will turn to her when they decide to change jobs in the future.
Shane Mccusker “Facebook Tools & Other Hacks”
Shane is the creator of the Facebook search tool called Intelligence.
During the track, we explored various technologies that can be valuable in recruiting. We discussed the ability to search for candidates on Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, as well as the use of chatbots, AI, and even Blockchain.
One interesting point shared by a participant was their experience sending personalized video messages to candidates, which resulted in a high response rate. They used the BombBomb tool to accomplish this, embedding the video directly into the email.
Martin Lee “Secret source”
Martin works alongside Irina Shamaeva and is a strong specialist in the field of sourcing. He will also be at #truKiev and will conduct a sourcing training session in Ukraine on November 18th.
Martin shared insights about Facebook and the tools that can be used to find candidates. The discussion also touched upon other sourcing tools and ideas.
Balazs Paroczay “Creative Sourcing”
The discussion revolved around the topic of dividing roles in a team between a Recruiter and a Sourcer. We are accustomed to these roles being separated more often in recruiting agencies. Balazs raised the question of whether they should indeed be separated or if one person can handle both roles.
Another open question was about the results of a Sourcer's work. Does a Sourcer update and complement the candidate database or provide the Recruiter with a ready-made Short List of interested candidates?
There are more questions than answers here :) From our experience, everyone on our team enjoys both sourcing and interacting with candidates. For us, it's an excellent way to switch between tasks.
I'm also sharing the event schedule, which will allow you to learn more about the program, see the speakers, and explore the various topics. There were presentations of different projects for recruiting/HR at the event, and you can find their names in the schedule.
And if you want to learn more about recruiting and sourcing, dream of starting a career in recruiting, or wish to improve your professional skills, we invite you to join our recruiting and sourcing courses.
