Just a few short weeks ago, on September 28th and 29th, the 2nd Annual Recruitment Learning Conference was held at the Chicago Blackstone Renaissance Hotel.  The purpose of the event was to bring together the gurus of the recruitment industry to share their expertise with recruiters, staffing leaders and company executives in an intimate, educational format.  For the second time, the event was a fantastic success due to the quality of presenters and their ability to present their ideas in a “how to” format.

Now that the event is over and we are planning the 3rd Annual Learning Conference for 2011, I want to personally thank each of the presenters for taking time out of their schedules to share their knowledge and expertise.

Celia Harper Guerra, SVP Talent Acquisition and Development; Allscripts

Celia – Thank you for sharing your insights and experience on how to start developing a magnetic employment brand.  Your perspectives from both Cisco and Allscripts, with those in the audience, to both big and small companies who are struggling with their branding message.  You were right on when you stated – “If you don’t focus on building your employer brand, someone else may do it for you and may not like the result!”

Phil Hendrickson, Leader Global Talet Sourcing Strategy; Starbucks

Phil – As always, your delivery is full of practical information on developing real and lasting sourcing strategies.  The steps you outlined of where to start and where the end result could be provided the attendees with a clear roadmap.  It was clear to see that sourcing should not be a post and pray mentality, but an iterative process that takes advantage of the tools and resources available in a step by step fashion.

Gerry Crispin, Principal and Co-Founder; CareerXroads

Gerry – What can I say?  No matter when or where you present, you are always informative, entertaining and right on the mark.  Thank you for sharing your insight on the importance of improving our abilities to collect source of hire data that can in turn be actionable.  It is always great to hear your wisdom!

Teresa Green, Sr.Director of Recruitment; Capital One

Teresa – Your delivery style and ability to communicate practical and actionable information is why you have been back with the event the past two years.   This is one of the first presentations on building a diversity strategy that made complete sense.  Focusing on your local community versus just being involved in national initiatives is a simple idea but makes so much sense.

Lee Ashton, VP International Human Resources & Global Talent Acquisition, Brown-Forman Corporation

Lee – Your “matter of fact” style is always well received by the audience and this year was no different.  Your vision of aspirational hiring and your approach to execute on this vision was talked about time and time again.  Focusing on those companies that execute on a specific discipline better than your organization, and then targeting those organizations yourself or through search partners is truly aspirational.

Ed Davis, Managing Director, Strategic Staffiing; Kelly Penrod, Director Corporate Recruiting; United Airlines

Ed & Kelly – The practical tools you provided in support of managing strategic staffing initiatives was invaluable to all of the attendees.  Truly understanding how to accomplish large, broad based staffing initiatives and have the right tools to track and use to report on is critical to the success of just about every staffing organization in the country.

Shawn Harter, Vice President Recruitment; Fifth Third Bank

Shawn – Thank you for sharing your vision of the candidate and customer experience and the journey you are on based on the principals learned from the story of Johnny the Bagger.  One person can truly make a difference in how an organization is perceived.  We are all anxious to hear the results of this journey in the upcoming years!

Janet Manzullo, Vice President Talent Acquisition; Time Warner Cable

Janet – Your operational and process prowess was evident in the results you shared with us on how you focused on improving the candidate experience while increasing the efficiency of your talent acquisition team.  The audience came away with very practical ideas that could be applied the day they returned to their office.  Our candidates can by our customers today, and our customers can be our candidates tomorrow!

Erin Peterson, VP Global Talent Acquisition; Hewitt Associates

Erin – Your practical steps on how you built a world class recruiting organization left many of the attendees in awe and excited about their application.  Your easy to understand, fully developed strategy can be applied to organizations both global and local.  The clarity of your presentation and comments received thereafter showed the impact you left on those that attended.  You are a rock star in our book.

Ramsey Sweis, President; Aqaba Technologies

Ramsey – Thank you for sharing a non-staffing related perspective of the use of technology and social media in our business.  As talent acquisition professionals, we often get caught up in the next new technology tool without truly understanding what our real web strategy is.  Understanding what the end goal is and creating a web and social media strategy around that goal is a simple yet profound approach.

Robert Rigby-Hall, SVP & Chief HR Officer, LexisNexis Group

Robert – Your British humor and realistic discussion on the importance of onboarding talent effectively left many questioning the effectiveness of their current process.  Highlighting the importance of proper assimilation and the steps LexisNexis is now taking with its senior level roles in hopes of a total onboarding transformation was fascinating to understand.

Again, thank you to all of the industry professionals who have made this one of a kind learning event possible.

Steve Lowisz